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BILLY BAN BETWEEN THE SHORT, FAT LEGS OF THE COOK AND UPSET HIM. 

(Page 20) 






BILLY WHISKERS 
OUT FOR FUN 


BY 

FRANCES TREGO MONTGOMERY 

AUTHOR OF “billy WHISKERS,” “bILLY WHISKERS* KIDS,” “bILLY 
whiskers’ ADVENTURES,” “bILLY WHISKERS IN THE MOVIES,” 
“FRANCES AND THE IRREPRESSIBLES AT BUENA 
VISTA FARM,” “tHE WONDERFUL ELEC- 
TRIC ELEPHANT,” ETC., ETC, 



■> . * 


Illustrated by PAUL HAWTHORNE 


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY 

AKRON, OHIO NEW YORK 



t 



Copyright 1922 
by 

The Saalfield Publishing Co. 



JUN -8 1922 

©CI.A677J.87 ' 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


CHAPTER 

I Billy Whiskers, Nannie, Stubby and Button 

Start on a Pleasure Trip 7 

II Billy Whiskers, Stubby and Button Visit the 

County Fair 115 

III What Befell the Chums in Town 27 

IV Billy Has an Exciting Experience 35 

V Billy Has Another Exciting Experience ... 43 

VI Billy Finds Nannie in Bad Hands 53 

VII Wild Excitement in the Barnyard 69 

VIII The Burglar in the Cellar 83 

IX The Bridal Supper 97 

X A Thrilling Experience in 

XI Unexpected Happenings 123 

XII The Elephant’s Story 137 

XIII Billy Whiskers’ Story 149 

XIV Polly and the Monkey Make Trourtv. . . . .(i^ 

XV The Circus Breaks Camp 171 

XVI The Escape from the Circus 177 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Billy ran between the short, fat legs of the cook and upset him. 

Billy and Nannie were on either side of the bull, sticking their long 
horns into him. 

He succeeded in lifting the bride into a crotch of the tree, but before 
he could climb up the bull was upon him. 

“My mother stretched out her trunk and threw the hunter over her 
head.” 

On that long table, set for a hundred fifty persons, each animal 
found something to his taste. 

“Follow me, Nannie I” called Billy and ran under the hook-and-lad- 
der auto. 




Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

CHAPTER I 

BILLY WHISKERS, NAN^^IE, STUBBY AND BUTTON START 
ON A PLEASURE TRIP 



[Y dear Nannie, what do you say to our seeking the sunny 
South for the winter? I am getting too old to enjoy 
huddling up to the lee side of a strawstack to keep warm 
or sleeping in a drafty barn. Here it is the first of 
September and by traveling slowly and taking our time, we could 
reach southern California by the first of November.” 

“California! Did I hear you say California?” 

“Yes. Why not?” 

“I thought you meant Florida or Mississippi or some of those 
states when you said South, for I always think of California as 
West and cold, not warm.” 

“Oh, no! I don’t like Florida and those Gulf of Mexico States 
as well as the warm climate of California. They have too many 
crocodiles and snakes to suit me.” 

“But, Billy, think what a hard trip it would be to travel all 
those thousands of miles.” 


7 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Not at all, my dear! We would travel only when we felt like 
it. At other times we could find some nice farm on which to live 
or a small town to stay in and we would enjoy the change of 
scenery as we traveled along from day to day. I have been on the 
move so much that I feel it would be positively impossible for me 
to stay here on this old farm away up in Wisconsin where nothing 
happens from one month’s end to the other all winter.” 

“I know, dear, you have the wanderlust in your blood, and rather 
than have you stay here and be unhappy, I will go with you.” 

“That is said like a darling little wife, and I know you will never 
regret the trip. It will do you good and liven you up.” 

“We will ask Stubby and Button if they don’t want to go with us.” 

“No use asking them if they want to go for you know perfectly 
well that nothing would keep them from going unless you positively 
forbade them and then I doubt not that they would follow you at 
a close distance.” 

All this conversation had taken place beside a strawstack on 
the farm where Billy Whiskers had been born. As he and Nannie 
stood beside it chewing the full wheat heads that had escaped the 
threshing machine, Billy had thought out the plan of crossing the 
continent on foot just to be doing something. 

“Hi, there. Stub, you and Button come over here a minute 1 I 
have something to tell you.” 


8 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


“From the way Nannie’s eyes are sparkling, I bet it is something 
exciting,” said Stubby. 

“If so, hurry and tell us and relieve our feelings,” implored 
Button. “I hope to goodness it has action in it, for I can’t stand this 
monotonous life much longer with nothing to do but eat our three 


good meals a day ” 



“You will find that 
what I have to pro 
pose to you has actio; 



in it. It has nothing hut 


action. It is to take 
a short walk of three 


thousand nine hun- , 
dred miles or so I 
from here to where' 
the Pacific Ocean 
laps the shores of 


On hearing this. Stubby began to run round after his tail for joy. 

“Hurrah for you!” exclaimed Button. “I am with you!” and he 
started to chase the chickens around the barnyard. 

After they had run off some of their excitement, the two quieted 
down and Stubby came back and wanted to know when Billy pro- 
posed starting. 


9 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“This very night,” replied Billy. “There is no time like the pres- 
ent. Besides, the roads are in excellent condition for traveling as 
we have just had a rain that has laid the dust. It is full moon, too. 
We will wait until the family have all gone to bed, then we will give 
a hasty good-by to all our friends on the farm and start. And I 
think we better go across the field and down through the woods at 
the back of the farm buildings than along the road, as we would 
surely meet some farmer who would know us and tell Mr. Windlass 
in which direction he had seen us going.” 

“There is only one drawback to our going and that is leaving be- 
hind Billy Junior, my son, and his wife and darling twin grand- 
children. I hate so to say good-by that whenever I go I feel like 
sneaking off and not letting anyone know I am leaving. It does no 
good to say good-by and only makes me feel sad. But Nannie 
thinks differently. Wild horses could not pull her away if she did 
not get a chance to say farewell. There she goes now to say good- 
by to the chickens that have been shut in that coop to fatten for 
market, but they don’t know that and they just stuff themselves with 
the food that is given them and quarrel over it, entirely oblivious of 
the fact that every mouthful they take puts on more fat and brings 
them that much nearer the day of their death.” 

Five hours after this conversation when all good-bys had been 
said, had you looked you would have seen two splotches of white 


10 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

weaving along in the high grass of the meadow, followed by a yellow 
splotch and a black splotch. For the long journey to California 
had begun. 

They soon crossed the meadow and came out on the railroad track 
that led to Chicago by way of Milwaukee, Racine and Sheboygan. 
They followed this track as it was good walking between the rails 
and they were in no danger of being seen by farmers. Consequently 
they made good time and stopped to rest just before daylight on the 
outskirts of a small town. It was just light enough to see the smoke 
from the chimneys of the houses when the four friends awoke and 
sat up on their haunches and held a consultation as to whether they 
should go through the town or around it. 

‘T need a shave,” said Billy. “Let’s go through it.” 

“You don’t mean to tell me,” said Nannie, “that you would be 
willing to go through the experience you once had when you were 
tied in a barber’s chair and the barber shaved off your beard, would 
you?” 

“Oh! I had forgotten about that. But you fail to mention how I 
stood around the place and waited for him to go to dinner, and how 
I butted him over a grocer’s wagon that was standing in front of 
his shop, and when he landed, it was in the middle of a mud pud- 
dle,” and at the memory of it Billy laughed until his sides 
shook. 


II 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“I too say we go through the town,” said Stubby, “for I haven’t 
had a piece of butcher’s meat for ages and I should like to feel the 
blood trickling down my throat when my teeth sink into it and listen 
to the sound of my teeth grinding the bones. Yes, I say we go 
through.” 

“That juicy meat sounds pretty good to me,” said Button. “I 
would not mind a steak myself even should it happen to be a tough 
one.” 

“Well, Nannie, what have you to say to our plans? Should we 
be unlucky enough to be shut up, we are to baa, bark, and meow three 
times in quick succession and repeat three minutes apart. This is 
to be a guide to Nannie should she come back looking for us. If 
you hear a goat baaing, you are to listen and see if he baas naturally 
or baas as the signal says, three times every three minutes. The same 
way if you hear a dog or cat, you are to make sure whether it is 
Stubby or Button or some strange dog or cat.” 

“That is all right for us, but what are we to do if we come to our 
trysting place and find no Nannie?” said Stubby. 

“If I am hiding somewhere, I too will baa every three minutes. 
But if you don’t hear me, you are all to begin hunting for me. For 
who knows but what a farmer with a big dog might come along and 
carry me off in his wagon so you could not follow my trail, or his 
dog chase me into some yard where I might be shut in?” 


12 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

‘‘Never you fear, Nannie,” said Stubby. “With my nose to scent 
you out and Billy’s horns to butt both the dog and farmer into next 
week, we can’t lose you. No, dearie; don’t be afraid I Your 
dear husband isn’t too old yet to rescue his little wife from dozens of 
farmers and their dogs.” 

“Oh, she will be for going around,” spoke up Billy. '^Safety 
First with her.” 

“You are right, Billy. I should prefer avoiding all danger 
where it is possible. Besides, it will take up much more time to 
go through the town than around it.” 

“Yes! But the fun and excitement we may miss!” replied Billy. 
“We are out for fun and adventures as much as to get to Califor- 
nia. 

“I have an ideal” exclaimed Button. “You go around the town, 
Nannie, while we go through it and we will meet you the other 
side, two miles from the limits, on the main road that runs due 
south. For there must be a road running in that direction to 
Chicago where we make our first turn to the West.” 

“An excellent idea. Button,” declared Billy. “What say you, 
little wifey?” 

“Yes, I think it a good plan, for I hate excitement and crowds 
and hubbub. All of which you three adore and would rather be in 
than not.” 


13 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

And so it was decided that Billy, Stubby and Button should go 
through the town and Nannie around it, meeting them the next 
day at noon. But should they not appear by the day after she was 
either to wait for them another day or come back and find what 
had happened to them. So they all rubbed noses together, their 
way of kissing, and baaing, barking and meowing good-bys and 
wishing good luck to each other, they separated, Nannie going to 
the west to circle the town and Billy, Stubby and Button following 
the railroad that led through the center of the town. 

Had they known what was in store for them, they would not 
have kissed good-bys so cheerfully, I’m thinking. 


CHAPTER II 


BILLY WHISKERS, STUBBY AND BUTTON VISIT THE COUNTY FAIR 

UST as Billy, Stubby and Button were about to continue 
down the railroad track, Billy chanced to glance to the 
east and there he saw a cluster of long buildings that 
looked like barns and great open grandstands roofed 
over like baseball and football grounds and all enclosed with a 
high board fence. But what attracted him most was the number of 
flags, banners and pennants he saw waving from hundreds of flag- 
poles. 

“Gee, fellows 1 That looks interesting to me, for those flags tell 
me there must be a County Fair going on over there, as this is 
the time of year they always have a big Fair. And I can well 
remember the one I went to when I was quite young. I never 
had such an enjoyable, exciting time in my life. What say you that 
we postpone going into the town and go over to the Fair instead?” 

“Fine, just fine! I would like it above everything, for I haven’t 
been to one for years. I, like you, remember the time I was there, 
only I was such a little puppy that I was under everybody’s feet 
and was nearly run over several times, until at last my little master 

15 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

took me up in his arms and carried me. But I have always thought 
I should like to go back and see what it was like when I was old 
enough to take care of myself.” 

“As for me,” replied Button, “I am ready for anything, just 
so I get something to eat pretty soon, for I am as hungry as a hedge- 
hog.” 

“That settles itl” said Billy. “And I can promise you the best 
things to eat and plenty of them. The country women bring all 
their good things to the Fair to contest for prizes, from the best 
roast chickens, cured hams all roasted and garnished with cloves 
stuck in them to make them tasty, to pickles and jellies of all sorts. 
As for pies, they would just melt in your mouth. But I forget 
you don’t care for jelly and spices. Very well then, there is a dairy 
exhibit where you can bathe in cream, there is so much of it.” 

“Come along, come along! The very sound of cream makes 
my mouth water.” 

The Chums soon arrived at the fairgrounds and it being so early, 
the only ones going in were the owners of exhibits and the men to 
feed and water the live stock, chickens, geese and ducks that were 
on exhibition. They watched their chance and slipped in when no 
one was looking, Billy walking in under a load of hay while Button 
rode in on a pole sticking out from the hay load and Stubby trotted in 

i6 



BILLY AND NANNIE WEBE ON EITHER SIDE OF THE BULL, STICKING THEIR 

LONG HORNS INTO HIM. 


(Page 72) 




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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

fearlessly as if he belonged to a man driving a wagon full of milk 
cans. 

Once in, they hid under the seats of the grandstand until they 
laid their plans — what they would do, where they would go and 
where they would meet. 

“There is no use of our trying to keep together,” said Billy, “for 
if we do we will be stoned and clubbed and have no fun, so I 
say we separate and each amuse himself in the way he likes best, 
but that we all meet the other side of the town where we are to 
join Nannie.” 

“The plan suits me to a tee,” said Button. 

“And me too,” said Stubby. 

“I think the first thing I will do will be to look up that dairy 
you were speaking of,” said Button. 

“As for me,” replied Stubby, “I shall smell out those roast 
chickens and ducks. Where do you plan to go first?” 

“I was just thinking I would go over to the fat stock show and 
while I looked around for old friends I would incidentally eat up 
some of the corn and oats that had been given to them. There is 
sure to be plenty left as their owners will be stuffing them to keep 
them fat.” 

“Gee I Look at the crowd pouring in. And it is so early. We 

17 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

better get started before the crowd is so great we can’t get near 
anything. Au revoir, fellows, until we meet again! And be sure 
you turn up at the trysting-placel” And with a whirl of his tail 
Billy was off, running under the seats toward the fat stock exhibit. 

Button followed him for a way, then he spied the dairy building 
to his left and made a bee line for it. When he reached the door. 


he found two dairy 
door talking, and 
over what they 
sneaked in 





maids standing in the open 
they were so excited 
were saying that he 
right beside them 
and was lap- 
ping the 
cream first 
from one pan and 
then from another. 


All of a sudden one 
of them turned round and seeing Button, she gave such an outlandish 
scream that it startled him and he fell headlong into the pan. In a 
minute he came out dripping, cream streaming into his eyes so he 
could not see. In his endeavor to get away, he fell into another as 
there were several pans cooling in a vat of ice-water. One of the 
maids grabbed up a broom and came for him. He jumped straight 
toward her and as she dodged him she slipped and fell into the vat of 

i8 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

cold, cold water, upsetting every pan in the vat. Button landed on 
the floor and the jar shook the thick cream from his eyes so he could 
see. And you just better believe it did not take him long to escape. 
He had his fill of cream for once. 

On his way to the fat cattle, Billy chanced to pass a pastry 
show and the delicious odor of hot molasses cakes floated to his 
nostrils through the open door. 

“Oh my! Don’t those cookies smell good? I shall just have 
to have some for I haven’t had any old-fashioned molasses cookies 
for ages and I adore them. I also smell pumpkin pie which I 
like just as well. Guess I’ll just tarry here a while and eat some. 
Think they would taste better than corn or oats at this particular 
time. How I wish Nannie was not so timid! Then she would be 
here so she could get some, for I know she adores molasses cookies. 
If that big fat cook doesn’t stop standing in that doorway wasting 
his time, I shall have to butt him out while I go in and eat what 
I want. There, he is moving, and I smell something burning. 
Serves him right when he neglects them and wastes his master’s 
time and money standing at the door instead of attending to busi- 
ness. But ‘It is an ill wind that blows nobody any good’ for now 
he will be so busy looking after his things that he won’t see me 
helping myself.” 

When Billy arrived at the front door, the cook was disappear- 

19 


■ ;• 

U 

Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

ing out the back door with the pan of burned cookies, mumbling 
to himself: 

“Gott in himmel! See what happens to me when I just step to 
the door for one breath of air I My Gott I My Gott ! M r. S waben- 
bach will kill me for wasting his butter und eggs und sugar und 
flour.” 

“Yes, and he will feel like beating you to a jelly when he sees 
what has happened to his pies, for I have already tasted four dif- 
ferent kinds,” thought Stubby. 

Just then the cook returned, still muttering to himself. But 
when he saw Billy 'up on a table eating a pie and several others 
ruined by being trampled upon he nearly fell backward in alarm. 
Then with a roar like a bull he started for Billy, throwing his 
empty cookie pan at him. He threw it so hard that when it hit 
Billy’s sharp horns, they made two holes in it and it stuck to Billy’s 
head and slipped half over one eye. Billy immediately jumped 
to the floor, hitting the pan a bang on the side of the table and 
completely covering one eye. This made Billy angry and when 
he saw the cook approaching him with a long-handled soup boiler 
in his hand, Billy turned and, running between the short fat legs 
of the cook, he upset him, sending hot soup all over him, for it turned 
upside down on his head and spilled carrots, turnips and potatoes 
all over him. Billy ran out the back door and jumped a fence 


20 


I 

Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

which brought him into a chicken yard. As he went over, the 
cookie pan on his head hit the fence in just such a way that it 
knocked it off his horns, much to Billy’s delight. 

His arrival in the chicken yard caused a fresh commotion as it 
surprised the fowls so they flew in all directions and set up a loud 
cackling which brought the owner to see what was the matter. When 
he spied Billy he thought one of the prize goats had escaped from the 
cattle show, so hurried over there to tell them their goat was in his 
chicken yard. A man with a rope came back with him to cap- 
ture Billy, never even stopping to see whether or not one of their 
goats had disappeared. 

But when they returned not a goat was to be seen or a chicken 
either, for that matter, as the chickens had coaxed Billy to butt 
down the fence so they could escape and he had done so. And 
the minute it was down, the chickens in the yard flew and ran through 
the opening out into the fair grounds and made for the outside fence. 

Billy hurried away from this scene of mishaps and as he was 
now nearly to the fat stock pavilion, he decided to follow the crowd 
a way and see where all the people were going. He soon discovered 
that they were on their way to the race track to see a game of auto 
polo. 

“Gee, I bet that will be exciting! As I never saw one, I think I 
will stop and watch it for awhile.” 


21 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

Around the field, in and out, went the small polo autos after the 
ball. It was the most exciting thing he had ever watched and he 
wondered how in the world the players were not all killed, for the 
autos turned upside down, collided, skidded and ran head-on into 
each other. But after each mishap the men seemed to get up, shake 
a little dust off their clothes, wipe the dust from bleeding noses, 
and go right on with the game. 

He was wildly excited and was watching with straining eyes a 
brilliant player when a heavy hand was laid on him and a gruff 
voice said: “Here you, old fellow, come along with me! You 
have caused all the trouble you are going to since your escape. 
And don’t you know it is almost time for your race around this 
ring in the donkey and dog race?” 

“Gee! He takes me for some goat that is down to run a race 
with some donkeys and dogs, I take it. Well, I am game! I’ll 
go along and race to suit him. And I bet on myself to win that 
race.” 

Billy was right. That was just what the man wanted of him, and 
with little preliminaries Billy was led to the starting place and hitched 
to a little racing sulky that a little darkey boy was to drive. Near 
by he saw two little donkeys, two big dogs and one goat hitched to 
sulkies like the one to which he was being harnessed. 


22 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

He was led into the ring, the others were led up also and all 
of them stood in line. Then a bell rang, and they were off. It had 
been a long time since Billy had been in a race. Being out of prac- 
tice running, he was left behind at first as his legs felt stiff and he 
was a little out of breath. But his pride got the better of his short 
breath and stiffness when he saw they were all ahead of him. He 



he ever had been in. Oh, no! He would show them he was not 
too old and stiff to beat them. This was to be a three-lap race, 
which gave him encouragement. 

“They can have their first lap; I’ll have my second wind and all 
my stiffness will be gone on the second. Besides the ones who start 
off the briskest often come in last.” 

“Here, Billy, what is the matter with you? You must be sick to 


23 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

lag so on this race. Get a move on you or your rival, the slate- 
colored donkey, will beat you I” urged the boy that was driving 
him, never doubting that our Billy was the goat he had always 
driven. 

With a bound forward that nearly threw the boy off his seat, 
Billy started on a mad run. Off he went, rounding corners and 
ever increasing his speed until he had passed all but his rival, the 
slate-colored donkey. When he came abreast of him, it was nip 
and tuck to the poles, but Billy came in a neck ahead. 

But what was the surprise of the boy, his keeper and all the rac- 
ing people to see another goat exactly like Billy standing in the 
gateway to the racing ring! 

“Well, I’ll be switched!” exclaimed the boy. “Where did that 
goat come from that is so much like ours? We better nab him; 
he would make a great mate for ours.” Then he attempted to 
take hold of the collar on Billy’s neck, expecting to find the collar 
their goats always wore, but there was none. His surprise was un- 
limited, and he called to a man standing near their goat to feel for 
the collar and there it was. 

“Well, I’ll be hanged! If I haven’t driven a strange goat and 
never known it was not our own!” 

Everyone thought it was the strangest thing they had ever heard 
of and many followed the boy and Billy into the yard where he 

24 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

was unharnessed and then led away and tied up with some other 
goats and sheep. 

They had just left him alone when whom should Billy see but 
Stubby sticking his head through a hole in the fence near him. 

“Billy, I came to congratulate you on the race. I never saw a 
prettier one, but my heart was in my mouth for awhile, you were 
so long getting started. And now what are you going to do? Here 
you are tied up and it is time we were going on or Nannie will be 
looking for us.” 

“Why, I am going to start in a few minutes, just as soon as they 
give me a drink and I eat a bite or two. I am rather tired andj 
thirsty from my race.” 

“But you are tied and they won’t untie you for a while, I can 
tell you.” 

“Oh, Stub, you make me tired at times! Especially when you 
think any old rope will keep me from escaping. Here comes my 
drink of water. Vamoose to the other side of the fence and as 
soon as I have eaten and drunk my fill I will baa and then you crawl 
under the fence and come and help me chew this rope in two.” 

“All right, I will,” barked Stubby. 

After twenty minutes Stubby, who was about to fall asleep, heard 
Billy baa and under the fence he went. Within a very short time 
they had chewed in two the rope that held Billy and he had run 

25 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to the fence where he butted a couple of boards off to make a hole 
big enough for him to crawl through. No one noticed his escape, 
for at that time of the day that part of the grounds was almost de- 
serted. 

Billy and Stubby proceeded toward town and they decided to 
sleep outside the village that night, and not go in until morning. 


26 


CHAPTER III 


WHAT BEFELL THE CHUMS WHILE IN TOWN 

HEN they did go in the town they found the inhabitants 
were just getting up to breakfast, for they could smell 
bacon and potatoes frying and coffee boiling as they 
passed the houses. There were few people on the 
streets as yet so the Chums could go wherever they wished with- 
out being molested. But the odor of bacon and fried potatoes was 
so tempting to Stubby and Button and made them so hungry that 
they declared their intention of having breakfast before they traveled 
further. This food did not appeal to Billy but fresh lettuce and 
carrots with dew on them did, so he proposed that Stubby and 
Button try to get some bacon and potatoes while he jumped some 
garden fence and feasted on fresh vegetables until Stubby barked 
the signal for them all to move on. 

But alas, these plans were made only to be broken. 

Billy soon came to a house with a beautiful garden in front in 
which were climbing roses and many other kinds of flowers, while 

27 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

at the back was a big vegetable garden. On the way to the garden 
he nibbled off the fragrant, sweet tasting, full blooming red roses, 
taking care not to let the thorns prick him. 

“Well, I declare I” said Billy to himself, “I never knew roses were 
so deliciously sweet and tasty before. Why, they are better eating 
than carrots or lettuce 1 The only trouble is that I can’t get a big 
mouthful at a time on account of having to look out for the thorns. 
Gee, I am caught in the bushl Wish I hadn’t tried to reach that 
big red rose on the topmost branch. I have gotten myself all tan- 
gled up. I know that rosebud looks very pretty in my beard and the 
one behind my left ear is equally jaunty and fetching, but jumping 
cats! those old thorns do scratch my sides like the dickens.” 

Just then “Bow-wow, Bow-wow, Bow-wowl” barked a big dog at 
his back. The dog had sneaked up so suddenly and quietly behind 
Billy that he had not heard a sound. The first “Bow-wow” startled 
him so that he gave a bound out of the rosebush, leaving bunches of 
hair pulled out of his sides and strands of long hair pulled out of 
his beard. Encouraged by his jump, the dog thought Billy was 
afraid, so ran after him. But by this time Billy had recovered from 
his surprise and instead of continuing to run he whirled quickly and 
faced the dog. This move was so unexpected to the dog that he 
ran full force into Billy before he could stop himself and there they 
stood for a second, nose against nose. Being quick-witted, Billy re- 

28 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


covered from his surprise first and before you could say Jack 
Robinson he had butted the dog head over heels out into the middle 
of the road. He picked himself up and went yelping home with 
his tail between his legs. And Mister Billy proceeded on his way 
to the vegetable garden back of the house where 
he jumped the fence. Finding a nice bed of 
letuce, he planted him- 
self in the middle of it 
and began to eat as 
quietly and placidly as 
if he had never seen 
a dog in his life. 

And while he is 
eating lettuce, 
we will see 
what luck 
Stubby and . 

Button had finding 
a breakfast. 

As soon as Billy left them they separated, one going on one side 
of the railroad track, the other on the other side. Then they ran 
along in front of the houses, smelling to find a place where they 
were cooking meat or potatoes. Stubby had run around to the 

29 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

back of a house where he had thought he smelled fried potatoes 
but what was his joy as he passed the kitchen window to smell the 
delicious odor of fried beefsteak as well as potatoes. 

“Here is the place for me,” thought Stubby to himself. “I’ll 
stay right here until someone opens the kitchen door, then I shall 
sneak in and grab some of that steak.” 

He hid under the back porch, and as he impatiently waited, he 
could smell the steak and hear it sputtering in the frying-pan until 
he was so hungry and wanted a piece of it so badly that he felt he 
could eat the whole cow instead of one steak. He was losing hopes 
of anyone ever opening the kitchen door when the cook did so and 
left it open to let the smoke out, for while she was in the dining- 
room the potatoes had burned to a crisp and filled the kitchen with 
smoke. While she and her mistress were fussing over the burned 
potatoes. Stubby slipped in the door under cover of the smoke and 
jumped up on the table where the steak was on a platter ready to be 
served. With one grab he had it in his mouth and was running out 
the door before they saw him. Then with a scream of rage and 
surprise, the cook grabbed a broom and gave chase. Stubby ran 
down the railroad track and then dodged into a back yard and 
crawled under a fence into an alley and ran until he came to an 
empty packing box leaning on its side. Into this he dodged and 
dropped the meat to rest his jaws while he stuck his head around 

30 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

one side of the box to see if the cook was still pursuing him. Through 
a crack in the fence opposite the box he caught a glimpse of her 
still running down fhe railroad track wtih a broom waving in mid- 
air and crying, “Stop thief 1 Stop thief!” So he knew she had lost 
him for good, and with a sigh of relief and contentment he lay 
down by the steak and began to eat it hurriedly. It seemed to him 
he had never tasted anything so good in all his life. 

He was just about gorged and feeling sorry he could not eat it 
all, it was so good, when who should stick his -head around the box 
and peer in but Button. 

“For mercy sakes! What are you doing here?” asked Button. 

“Can’t you see?” replied Stubby. 

“Looks to me as if you had been stuffing yourself on beefsteak.” 

“I have, and you are just in time to save me from killing myself 
by over-eating. Come on and finish it for me.” 

“Think I will, but I can’t eat much as I have just dined on roast 
goose.” 

“Roast goose for breakfast! Who ever heard of goose for break- 
fast?” 

“No one, I guess. This goose was not for breakfast. It was for 
dinner, but the cook had roasted it so she would not have to watch 
it so closely when all her other things were on the fire. Then just 
before they were done she had intended putting this back in the 

31 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

oven and finish browning it. They are having a birthday party 
there to-day. She had put this on the window sill to cool and I saw 
it so I just jumped up on the sill, ate my fill and escaped without 
being seen. Gee, won’t she be mad when she finds what has hap- 
pened? She will think a rat ate it.” 

“My, what Billy and Nannie miss in the way of eating by being 
vegetarians! I really can’t see how they stand it,” remarked Stubby. 

“Well, I have eaten all I can. I wish we had pockets in our skins 
so we could carry what is left for future use when we have no way 
of getting a morsel of meat,” said Button. “But as we can’t, don’t 
you think we better be moving on to find Billy?” 

So they left the remains of the steak and continued down the 
alley. As they emerged, they looked down the street which faced 
the yard where Billy had feasted in the garden and they saw him 
running out of the yard, chased by a big fat cook with a dipper of 
hot water, a gardener with a rope, and a coachman with a long 
whip. But the Chums could see that Billy had such a good start 
that there was no likelihood of their catching him. 

Then things began to happen. The cook stubbed her toe and fell 
flat. The gardener ran into a clothes-line which caught him under 
the chin and threw him back ten or fifteen feet. The coachman on 
seeing this ran back toward the stable. Then Stubby looked for 
Billy to come to them in the alley. He saw the three men standing 

32 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

there laughing to see the fat cook try to get on her feet again and the 
gardener go reeling off, holding his hands to his neck. At this 
moment the coachman appeared on a bicycle and, spying them, he 
made straight for them. Before they could get out of his way he 



under the alley fence and Button ran up the fence and jumped down 
the other side, while Billy ran on, then stopped suddenly so the 
man would hit him and he would pitch head foremost off his wheel. 


33 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

This is just what happened. The wheel struck Billy, who was 
braced for it, and over the handle bar flew the coachman. 

While he was picking himself up, Billy ran out of the alley and 
baaed for Stubby and Button. They answered, and soon the Chums 
were together again, hurrying down the railroad track. 


34 


CHAPTER IV 


BILLY HAS AN EXCITING EXPERIENCE 

HE two Chums ran down the sidewalk until they saw 
the outskirts of the town ahead of them and it being too 
early to meet Nannie, they decided to separate at the 
next street and go into the business part of the town and 
see what kind of a place it was. 

‘‘I see a good looking yellow cat down the street I am going to 
talk to,” said Button. 

“Very well,” replied Billy. “If I don’t see you again, be sure 
and be at the trysting-place by six o’clock this evening.” 

“What are you going to do?” 

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up my mind.” 

And he never had a chance to make up his mind for at that 
moment a coat was thrown over his head from behind and many 
hands grabbed him. Ropes were slipped around his neck and legs 
and thus, half hobbled and half pulled, he was dragged up a short 
pair of steps into a barber shop, where amid much laughter which 
seemed to come from five or six throats, he was lifted and pulled into 

35 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

a barber’s big chair. Here he was securely held so he could not 
move a muscle and then the coat was taken from off his head and 
he found himself sitting in a barber’s chair before a glass with five 
big strong young boys around him laughing in his face. 

And the ringleader spoke up and said : “Now, Tony, get to work 
and fix him up as I gave you directions!” 

It seems these were college boys who were out for a lark and they 
were looking for a white goat when they chanced to see Billy. 
What they were up to was to catch a goat and shave him so his 
beard would be the same shape as that worn by one of the professors 
at the college whom they detested. He had a long face and pale 
blue eyes with the expression of a girl, so they were sure they could 
fix Billy up and dress him in the professor’s clothes so he would be 
taken for the professor himself in a semi-darkened place. 

They wished to play a joke on the Junior class. The class had 
been up to some mischief and no one knew of it but these Seniors 
and they decided to make the Juniors believe that the professor 
knew all about it and was about to expel them. So they proposed 
to dress Billy up as the professor and tie him in a chair at a desk in 
the recitation room, and then tell the Juniors that the professor 
wished to see them there at nine o’clock. 

“All ready, Tony! First cut his beard into a long point, then 
trim his hair on the side to look like side whiskers, and fix the hair 

36 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

on his upper lip to look like a long mustache. Then dye them all 
black but leave the rest of his face white. And oh yes, blacken his 
eyebrows and lashes I” 

“Heavens, what am I to do to get loose? Think what I will 
look like with black beard, ^ 
mustache, eyebrows and lashes. 

I really can’t stand it to have 
them do it. I will be a sight all 
the rest of my life with a face 
like that and a pure white 
back.” 

Poor Billy! 

He tried to 
open his 
mouth to baa, 
but it was tied 
shut. He tried to 
move his head to 
so securely tied he 
turn his head one inch. Then he tried to kick, but his hind legs were 
tied together and his forelegs bound to the arms of the chair. He 
was absolutely helpless! He closed his eyes and wept for Billy was 
very proud of his size and good looks and to be a laughing-stock to 

37 



look, but he was 
could not even 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

every person that laid eyes on him hereafter was too much for his 
strong spirit to stand. So I know you won’t blame him if he wept 
for once in his life. But he promised himself that when he did get 
loose that he would spend the rest of his life getting even with those 
five boys and the barber. 

“Clip, clip, clip I” went the shears and at every clip the boys and 
barber loudly howled with delight at the change it made in Billy. 

“Now for the dye I” said the barber. “That will complete the 
likeness and I know it is going to be perfect.” 

Billy felt some cold stuff around his face and soon the barber took 
a soft brush and put the cold liquid on his eyebrows and lashes. 

“Oh, isn’t he a scream?” chuckled the boys. 

“Come now, Mr. Goat, open your eyes and look at yourself in 
the mirror before you,” said the barber as he finished his job. 

But Billy would not open his eyes until the barber threatened to 
shave the rest of the hair off his back unless he did open them. So 
he opened them and looked. There gazing at him from the mirror 
was not Billy Whiskers at all but a long-faced man with black 
whiskers, mustache and eyebrows under which shone two blue 
eyes which grew larger and larger as he stared at the face in the 
mirror. But where was he? For surely that black-bearded person 
was not Billy Whiskers I No amount of dye could change a goat 
to look so like a man. He was so taken by surprise that he just 

38 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

sat and stared and stared at the reflection, while the boys fell over 
one another in fits of laughter and clapped each other on the back 
and howled with delight. 

“Here, Tony, is five dollars for you for doing such a wonderful 
job. Now where shall we hide him until it gets dark enough to 
lead him to the college?” 

“I’ll put him in my cellar until you come for him,” said Tony. 

“That will be finel Give him plenty to eat and drink, for we 
don’t want to starve or hurt him in the least, and we will let him 
go the minute the joke is played out. Good-by, Tony, good-by I” 
called the boys as they filed out of the barber shop. 

Tony shut the outside door and then cautiously untied Billy — 
all but the rope around his neck. With this he led him to the 
cellar. Billy could have butted him easily and made his escape, 
but he was too disappointed to fight at that moment. Besides, he 
wished to go to some cellar or dark place and hide until the dye 
wore off his beard and he looked like himself again. 

The barber led Billy to the cellar where he took the rope from 
his neck and left him in a large room while he went to get him 
something to eat and drink. When he came back he said : “Now, 
old fellow, you better eat and drink what I have brought you and 
then take a rest for if I am not mistaken you will have a wild night 
of it when once those Junior college boys find out a goat has been 

39 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

palmed off on them as the professor.” So saying, he walked out and 
shut the door. 

For a few minutes Billy lay still. Then he decided he better 
eat and drink if he was to be in trim to combat the boys. After he 
had eaten all he cared to and had a drink of good cold water, he felt 
so much better he said to himself : “I am a chump to give up like 
this I While there is life there is hope. I’ll just look round this 
room and see if I can’t find some window open or a rickety door I 
can butt down.” 

He walked around and around the cellar but found the windows 
were too high from the floor to jump through and the doors too 
heavy to butt down. But as he inspected the door he saw that it 
had an old-fashioned round knob for a handle. 

“I have an idea,” he said to himself. “If I wiggle that knob, it 
may turn the latch and I can open the door.” And in a second Billy 
had that knob in his mouth and was twisting and twisting it in every 
direction to try and make the latch slip back. It would go half 
way, then when he could not turn his head any further, it would 
slip back. At last Billy grew angry, he grabbed the knob between 
his teeth and gave it a quick turn and lo and behold! the door flew 
open. 

Well, it did not take Billy long to get out of that room and run 

40 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


down a long, dark hall until he came to a pair of steps that led up, 
he did not know where, but he expected into a hall that would 
eventually lead to some outside door. An5rway, he took the chance 
and mounted them. When he arrived at the top he heard someone 
coming and seeing a door standing ajar, he quickly pushed it open 
and stepped inside. 

It was pitch dark in this room and the 
air felt damp and sultry. Billy stood 
perfectly still until the sound of footsteps 
died away. By this time 
had become accustomed 
darkness and he could 
distinguish small, long 
narrow windows five or 
six feet from the floor. 

“Funny place for win- 
dows! And a queer room, I must 

say, with this heavy, damp air in it. It is so dark I’ll walk 
cautiously over to one of those windows, stand on my hind feet and 
find what I can see through them.” 

Billy took two steps and found himself falling into inky blackness. 
Then he went kersplashl into deep water. He had fallen into a 

41 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

swimming tank. As this building was given over to Turkish bath- 
rooms, barber shops and so on, Billy had fallen into the swimming 
tank, that was all. In a minute or two he realized where he was 
and he began swimming around to find some place to get out of the 
water. At last at one end he found a long board running down into 
the water to the floor of the tank, put there for the little boys who 
went swimming to climb out So up this board he went. Then he 
walked around the platform that surrounded the tank until he came 
to the door. Once there, he stood still and listened to find if he could 
hear anyone coming, but all was still. He poked his head out the 
door and feeling a draft, he stepped out into the hall and ran 
along searching the cause of the draft, which led him to an outside 
door as he had supposed it would. It opened into a long back yard 
which ended on an alley. And just as he left the building, he heard 
the voices of the five boys as they came in the front door after 
him. He had made his escape none too soon. And as he leaped 
the back yard fence into the alley, who should he nearly land on 
but Stubby. 

“Well, this is luck! But come on. Stub, don’t stop to ask any 
questions now for there are five boys on my trail this minute!” 
With a whirl of their tails, the two Chums disappeared down the 
alley. 


42 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

When they stopped running, Billy said to Stubby: “Thank you 
for not laughing at my appearance. You are a true friend, Stub.” 

“But why should I laugh at your appearance? You look just 
the same to me.” 

“Look just the same? Come, Stub, that is going too far with 
friendship ! How can you say I look just the same with my beard 
and eyebrows dyed black?” 

“Beard and eyebrows dyed black! Are you crazy, Billy, or what 
is the matter with you? Your beard is no blacker than it ever was. 
You must be blind to think so.” 

Billy now cast his eyes down at his long beard and, sure enough, 
it was white as snow, just as it always had been. 

“Could I have dreamed it all?” thought Billy. “No, for I am 
as wet as a rat from my swim in the tank.” Then the thought came 
to him : “The water must have washed off the dye. But who ever 
heard of dye coming off in one washing of cold water?” 

Billy never had, but what had been put on Billy was not a regular 
dye, but only some coloring matter that actors and actresses use when 
they wish to change from blond to brunette. It is a perfectly 
harmless preparation and washes off easily. 

When Billy realized he was looking his old self, he began to 
caper around and baa with joy until Stubby thought he must have 

43 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


taken leave of his senses. But when he stopped skipping around and 
told Stubby how the barber had fixed him up, Stubby said he would 
have given up his luncheon to have seen him, especially when Nannie 
and Button had their first glimpse of him. 


44 


CHAPTER V 


BILLY HAS ANOTHER EXCITING EXPERIENCE 

ILLY and Stubby continued down the alley together 
until they came to a corner drug store. Here they 
separated, Stubby going down the side street and Billy 
going inside to get some gumdrops he saw displayed 
in the window. 

Before going in, he looked through the window to be sure there 
was no one in sight, then he cautiously sneaked in the open door. 
By a coil of cigar smoke he saw rising from behind a partition 
where he knew the prescription desk was, he thought the proprietor 
must be putting up some medicine. As for the man who belonged 
at the soda fountain, he could see him talking to two young ladies 
in an auto outside to whom he had just served chocolate sodas. 

“My! That foamy chocolate soda looks good and makes me 
thirsty! I think before I eat my gumdrops I’ll just step behind 
the soda fountain and see if he has left any setting round.” 

Of course he had not, but what Billy saw that looked quite as 
good to him were several small boxes of little pink and yellow 
cakes standing up before some bottles on a shelf. 

45 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Me for the cakes before I get my drink!” And Billy slipped his 
tongue around one of the pink cakes and before he knew it, it had 
slipped down his throat, leaving a nasty taste in his mouth and 
causing a thick foam to fill his mouth and throat. 

“Horror of horrors! I have 
swallowed a cake of soap 
instead of one made of 
flour. Whatever shall 
I do to get the taste 
out of my mouth?” 

Just then he spied 
a tub of water in 
which they washed 
the soda water glasses, 
and he hurried to it 
and began taking long 
gulps. But alas! the 
more he drank, the 
more foam came up into his mouth until he was nearly strangled and 
he felt quite ill. 

“Oh! Oh! I must get outdoors immediately, I feel so sick.” 
And instead of running around the counter, he tried to jump over 
it, thinking it would be the shorter way. Alas, alack! His horns 

46 




Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

hit the spigot that turns the fizz into the soda water glasses and in a 
second Billy was blinded by the flying, sizzling fluid. It went in 
his ears, eyes, nose and mouth and for a minute or two he did not 
know which way to turn. In his blindness he turned the wrong 
way and instead of going toward the door, he landed behind the 
counter again, upsetting the ice-cream freezer and sending the ice 
and salt over the floor and knocking the lid off the can in which 
the ice-cream was packed. 

At this critical moment the man came out from behind the parti- 
tion to see what the racket was and the clerk who had served the 
sodas to the ladies came in also. As he went behind the counter 
he was met by a big billy goat foaming at the mouth. Of course 
he thought him a mad goat and he began to cry: “Mad goat! Mad 
goat! Look out, everybody!” and he ran out the door calling 
this as loudly as he could. 

The ladies in the machine hearing the cry and seeing the man 
running from the store started the machine, but not before the 
man crying “Mad goat! Mad goat!” had had time to jump on their 
running board and tell them to “Drive on, drive on!” 

Just as they started, Billy came running out of the drug store 
foaming at the mouth and close behind him the proprietor of the 
store, a broom held high over his head to chase Billy. But just as he 
reached the front door he stepped on a piece of ice from the ice- 

47 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

cream freezer and both feet slipped out from under him. He shot 
out the door and down the steps, landing beside Billy at the 
edge of the sidewalk, where poor Billy was coughing up great 
puffs of foam. At last up came what was left of the cake of soap 
and Billy soon felt relieved. 

The proprietor of the store, on seeing this, knew that Billy was 
not mad but only sick and this provoked him so that he raised 
his broom to hit Billy. Now Billy was in no mood to be beaten, 
so when the broom came down on his back he turned to chase 
the man, who ran back into the store with Billy after him. 

Back of the counter ran the man and when he rounded the corner 
he slipped again on the ice-cream that was now running out of 
the freezer. He slid along on the end of his backbone about five feet 
when he came up against the tub of water, upsetting it all over him, 
while Billy, who had jumped up on the counter, stood watching him. 

“You squint-eyed, pig-tailed, crooked-legged old goat! I’ll break 
every bone in your body if I ever catch you, for causing all this 
mess!” 

But while he was getting up Billy jumped from the counter and 
was about to run out the door when whom should he run into but 
a squad of policemen who had come in the ambulance to capture 
the mad goat the soda fountain man had reported was running wild. 

48 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

Billy never faltered a minute. He and all policemen were sworn 
enemies, so before they knew what had happened to them, 
he had butted each one over on the grass or into the gutter and 
was off down the street. And when Billy turned to see if they 
were following, he saw them all piling into the ambulance prepara- 
tory to starting for him. But Billy had too much of a start for 
them to overtake him. He was just thinking of leaving the town 
to go to meet Nannie when he heard a terrible racket down an alley 
he was about to cross. Just before he reached it out ran Stubby 
with a tin can full of stones tied to his tail, chased by five or six 
hoodlums each with a stick in his hand. 

On seeing them Billy said: “So that is ymir game, is it? I’ll 
teach you not to tie a tin can on a dog’s tail and then chase him 
and beat him when he has done nothing to you. Well, I’ll show 
you how it feels to be hurt and, what is more, I will give you 
full measure, so you and the rest of your gang will never tie another 
can to a dog’s tail again.” 

Then he baaed to Stubby: “I’ll take care of this gang. You 
go chew the rope off your tail and I will be back and help you 
the minute I have butted every one of those boys into the middle 
of next week.” 

The largest and foremost of the boys was about to strike Billy 

49 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

when, my, Oh my! what was the matter with his back? It hurt 
him so he felt it must be broken and here he was flying skyward 
as fast as he could gol Had he been blown up by a bomb or was 
a mad bull trying to kick him over the moon? Surely a goat could 
not butt one like that. 

And while he was thinking this, Billy was chasing the other 
boys down the alley as all had taken to their heels when they 
saw their leader going skyward after Billy butted him. One boy 
jumped over the fence into a yard and climbed a tree; another 
climbed up on the roof of a shed; a third jumped into a milk 
wagon that was standing in the alley, while a fourth ran through 
a yard and into a kitchen where he saw the door open. This one 
Billy followed straight into the kitchen and when the boy saw 
Billy still pursuing him, he ran upstairs and jumped in bed and 
pulled the covers over his head. 

After butting the fat cook down the cellar stairs when she tried 
to stop him, Billy followed the boy upstairs and leaped on the 
the bed, butting and kicking him until he cried for mercy. After 
a few minutes of this, thinking the boy had been punished enough, 
Billy jumped out the open window on to a low shed roof and 
from there to the ground. Then he hurried into the alley again 
to hunt up the other boys, for he had made up his mind he would 
punish them all. The next boy he saw was the one that had tried 

SO 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to get away from him by jumping into the milk wagon. All Billy 
had to do was to walk up to the horse and give him a slight hook 
in the stomach which startled him so he ran away. The boy was 
tossed around among the rattling milk cans like a pea in a pod, 
hurting his toes and giving him a bloody nose besides. 

The next boy Billy came to was the boy in the tree. He tried 
to climb the tree but of course could not. So then he butted 
the tree until it shook so it knocked the boy out. When he tried 
to jump up and run away, Billy was after him and he chased him 
until he was within a few feet of his home. Billy spied a big 
hogshead of rainwater and into this he butted the boy and left 
him crying for help. 

Now the only boy left was the one on the shed roof who had sat 
there and laughed as he watched Billy chasing the other boys. He 
had laughed until his sides ached and called to Billy to “give it to 
them, you old clummergudgenl” 

“Oh! You can laugh at your chums’ misery, can you, you 
cowardly sneak,” baaed Billy, “because you think you are safe? 
Now let us see which side of your mouth you will laugh on when 
you find I too can climb up on a shed roof.” 

Billy was right. This boy was the worst sneak and coward of 
the gang, so when he saw Billy coming up on the shed roof after 
him, his hair fairly stood on end and he yelled for help as if wild 

51 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


Indians were after him. But no one heard. The alley was de- 
serted at this time of day. Billy chased him around and around 
the roof for some time, giving him little butts just to 
show him what a big butt would be like. Then when 
he got to the place on the roof where 
he wanted him, Billy gave him a 
mighty butt that sent the boy fifty feet 
of! the roof out in a straight line over 
the cowyard fence where 
he dropped on a pile of 
manure. And here Billy 
left him and went to find 
Stubby. I ’ ^ I 


When he reached the 
place where he had left 
Stubby, he found he was in 
good hands. A kind- 
faced lady with a 
big heart for hurt 
animals had picked 
Stubby up in her arms and was carrying him home where she could 
cut the string around his tail and bathe the wound in warm water 
and witch hazel. The boys had tied the string on so tightly that she 

.52 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

could not undo the knot, so was taking him home where she could 
get a pair of scissors and cut it off. 

Billy followed them closely and waited until Stubby came out 
of her house with his tail wrapped up with a witch hazel bandage, 
and as he stood eating from a plate of food she had given him, 
Billy told him what he had done to his four boy tormentors. 

“Thank you so much, Billy I But how I should have loved to 
have seen you butting them right and left and skyward! My, that 
is a nice lady who fixed my tail! I like her so much, I’d like to stay 
with her always if it were not for our trip west. And it seems mean 
to run away from her without saying good-by after she has been 
so good to me. But the best of friends must part some time. I 
am going to promise myself to come back and see her when we 
return from our trip. As soon as I have finished eating this de- 
licious luncheon she has given me I will be ready to go with you 
to where Nannie is waiting for us.” 


53 


4 







CHAPTER VI 


BILLY FINDS NANNIE IN BAD HANDS 

UT when they reached the trysting-place, there was no 
Nannie. After waiting an hour, they decided some- 
thing must have happened to her, as it was long past 
the time she should have been there. So they put their 
heads together and formed plans as to how to search for her. 

Billy was to go to the right to a farmhouse whose chimneys he 
saw sticking up above the treetops to the right of the road. Stubby 
was to go round a big turn he saw to the left and Button was to 
stay there at the trysting-place in case Nannie came while they 
were away. 

“I feel quite sure someone has caught her and tied her up some- 
where,” said Billy. 

“So do I,” replied Stubby. “But it won’t take us long to rescue 
her when we once find her.” 

In the wiggle of a lamb’s tail Billy disappeared from sight down 
a ravine and Stubby under some bushes on the other side of the 
road. When they had gone Button climbed up into a tree and 
fell asleep. 



55 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

It seemed to him he had been napping but a short time when 
he heard Billy and Nannie talking under the tree. Billy had gone 
straight to the stable yard of the farmhouse whose chimneys he 
had seen above the treetops and as he approached, he heard a goat 
moan as if in pain. He stopped short to listen. Could that be 
Nannie’s voice? If so, and someone was hurting her, it would not 
be well for them. Again the hurt cry reached his ears. Yes, 
surely that was Nannie’s voice! He redoubled his speed and ar- 
rived at the fence that enclosed the farmyard just as three boys were 
trying to hitch Nannie to a little milk wagon that had three cans 
of milk in it. When they buckled on the harness, they buckled 
in a piece of her flesh, but what cared they? This hurt so it made 
her moan. Then they struck her over the head for not standing 
still, and dear knows what else they would have done to her if 
Billy had not jumped over the fence with one bound and come 
to her rescue. One boy he butted into a watering trough and 
another over the garden fence where he landed in an asparagus 
bed. The last boy he butted straight through the open barn door, 
knocking over the hired man who was coming out with a pail of 
milk in his hand, upsetting it and spilling it all over the barn 
floor. 

Then he turned to Nannie and said: “Now run for your life 

S6 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

and jump the fence. When the wagon hits the fence it will break 
the traces and you will be free.” 

Being a good jumper, especially when frightened, Nannie did 
exactly as Billy told her to do. 


selves up, they heard a crash. Looking in the direction from which 
the noise came, they saw Nannie and Billy jumping the four-rail 
fence as a steeplechase horse takes a fence. The traces broke and 
the little wagon, which had been pulled up on its hind wheels, 
toppled over and spilled out all the milk cans and the milk, while 
Nannie and Billy landed safely on the other side and ran for dear life 
to where Billy had left Button. Every once in a while Nannie 

57 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

would give a frightened look over her shoulder to see if the boys 
were following her, but she need have had no fear for the boys were 
too bruised to chance another butting. 

The hired man was so angry that he called their bull dog and 
sent him after the goats. Billy heard him coming and told Nannie 
to run to Button and he would wait for the dog to overtake him, 
then he would give him the surprise of his life. This dog was used 
to frightening anything he ran after. Little did he know Billy or 
he would have tucked his tail between his legs and turned and ran 
home. Billy stood perfectly still and pretended he was eating 
grass. On came the dog, yelping and barking as if he were going 
to eat Billy alive. And he was a ferocious looking dog for he was 
a bulldog with undershot jaw. A few feet from Billy was a deep 
pond with steep sides so Billy thought, “I’ll just butt him into that 
pond and he will have a good time getting out for the sides will give 
way and crumble in the minute he touches them.” 

“Bow-wow- wow I” barked the dog, showing his teeth as he jumped 
at Billy from a high bunch of long grass. Pang! went something 
flying through the air followed by a yowl of pain, and the dog 
landed in the middle of the pond and went straight down to the 
bottom. 

When the hired man, leaning on the fence to watch his dog chew 

S8 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

up Billy, saw this, he roared with rage, picked up a pitchfork which 
was handy and started for Billy. But when he reached the pond 
he found he had to give all his attention to his dog, else he would 
drown as the bank crumbled and gave way, carrying him back into 
the water every time he tried to climb out. 

Billy ran on and soon the friends were all together for the man 
and his dog did not follow them. The Chums started on down the 
road that led away from the town and toward Chicago, for which 
place they were bound. They traveled straight down this road until 
midnight. Then they went into a woods beside the road to sleep 
and rest until morning, but Nannie scarcely closed her eyes, for she 
had become so frightened she could not sleep. 

“My dear little wife,” said Billy, “don’t be afraid! I won’t 
allow anything to hurt you. Come over here and sleep close to me 
so I can protect you.” 

So at last Nannie fell asleep, but it was almost worse than being 
awake for she had terrible dreams of being chased by bulldogs that 
bit pieces right out of her side as she tried to run away from them. 

In the morning she felt as tired as if she had not slept at all, and 
the long journey ahead of her made her feel ill at the very thoughts 
of it, with its hardships and adventures. She thought of it all the 
morning and at noon she said to Billy: “My dear, I hope you won’t 

59 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

be disappointed, but I have made up my mind that it will be better 
for all concerned if I return home and let you and Stubby and But- 
ton continue your trip without me.” 

“Why, Nannie! What do you mean? Are you going to desert 
us at the very beginning of our journey?” asked Stubby. 

“Yes, Stubby. I feel I am getting too old to enjoy leaving my 
peaceful, quiet home, my children and grandchildren, to go roam- 
ing all over the continent just for the excitement and adventure. It 
may be all right for you unmarried ones, but for a grandmother, 
NO! I believe my place is at home and I am going to start back 
to-night before we are so far away I can’t find my way.” 

All this time Billy had kept still and was watching Nannie to see 
how much of this she meant, and he was surprised to find that every 
word of it was in earnest. Then the thoug! . flashed through his 
mind: “Perhaps she is right. She always has been a home-loving 
body and very timid, and I believe with her that this trip would be 
too much for her. I will go back with her to within sight of the 
farm so I shall know she reaches there safely. Then I shall come 
back and join Stubby and Button and we can continue our journey.” 

Nannie noticed Billy was very quiet and she was afraid to look 
at him for fear he would be angry at her for backing out. So she 
felt greatly relieved when she did look at him to find he was smiling 
at her and nodding his head for her to go. 

6o 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“You certainly are a darling, Billy, to let me have my own way in 
everything, but you need not escort me back home. I can find the 
way, and if I can’t, I can call on the crows and blackbirds to show 
me the way.” 

“No, my dear; I shall feel better if I see you home — at least 
the other side of the village where the boy captured you. If we 
travel fast, I can join Stubby and Button here by day after to- 
morrow. And what is two days lost when one is not in a hurry and 
going away for a year?” 

So they rested all that afternoon and just before dark Billy and 
Nannie started back to the old farm. They traveled rapidly until 
they came to a high hill that looked down on the old farm and the 
rolling country around it with its placid lake and wooded slopes on 
one side and the equally pretty country through which they had just 
passed on the other. 

“Billy,” said Nannie, “you need not come any farther with me. 
I can go on alone from here in perfect safety.” 

“Oh, I might as well go all the way with you.” 

“No, you need not, for it would only make you have to say good- 
by to everybody again, a thing you hate to do.” 

“Very well, if you say so and if you feel all right about my leav- 
ing you here, I will. But I do so wish you were going with us! 
Every mile I have been traveling in bringing you back has made me 

6i 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

feel more lonesome as it will be many months and perhaps a year 
before I see you again, and at our time of life we haven’t as many 
years to be together as we once had, you must remember.” 

“Oh, Billy, don’t talk that way or I shall turn right around and 
go back with you no matter how afraid I am of the unknown dan- 
gers I will have to pass through.” 

“No, no, dear! I would not have you go for worlds, if you were 
going to be afraid all the time. Now you start ahead and I will 
stand here and watch you out of sight.” 

“No, indeed, that is what 1 am going to do. I am going to wait 
here until you disappear over that farther hilltop.” 

“Oh, very well, if you wish it.” 

And with many, many rubbings of noses and sides in lieu of 
kisses, the two old lovers parted. Billy ran as fast as he could down 
the hill and Nannie strained her eyes to see him come out of the 
grove of trees at the bottom and begin to climb the hill. She could 
easily locate him by the white spot he made on the green landscape. 

But what was the matter with her? Every time he disappeared 
her heart fluttered so she felt she would suffocate and the tears 
sprang to her eyes in such numbers that for a minute or two she 
could not see him when he did emerge from the bushes and trees 
that had hid him. And all too quickly he was approaching the top 

62 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

of that terrible hill where, when he once stepped over the top, she 
would not see him for — what had he said? — weeks, months and per- 
haps a year! 

No, it must not, could not be! She knew it now by the flutter of 
her heart that fear, children or grandchildren could not keep her 
from following her own darling lover-husband. And with a long 
jump she was down the side of the hill, baaing for Billy to wait for 
her. 

Poor timid, loving Nannie! Her love had cast out fear as it al- 
ways does in life if we love enough. Nannie ran so fast that she did 
not look where she was going and she had many falls and turned 
many somersaults before she reached the top of the hill over which 
Billy had disappeared. And when she at last stood on the brow of 
the hill she expected to see him miles ahead of her. But what was 
her joy on reaching the crest to see him quietly drinking out of a 
little stream at the bottom. 

“He has his back to me, so I will just creep up and surprise him,” 
she said to herself with joy in her heart that she had found him so 
soon, “and never, no, never will I leave him again of my own 
accord.” 

After drinking all he cared to, Billy waded out into the middle 
of the stream where the water was deep, to let it wash over his back 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to clean his long hair. He was so busy with his bath that the first 
he knew of her presence was when he saw a shadow in the water be- 
side him. 

Can you appreciate his surprise when he looked up and saw his 
little Nannie whom he had thought so far away standing beside 
him? 

“Why, Nannie, my darling, how you surprised mel When I saw 
your shadow I thought you were some animal that had waded into 
the stream for a drink. Whatever brought you back? Oh, I don’t 
care what it was, so you are here, for I was so lonesome without you 
that I was about to turn back and coax you to come with us or stay 
behind myself.” 

“Were you really, Billy? How nicel Now I know you will feel 
all right when I tell you I have decided to go with you and never 
be separated from you again if I can help it.” 

“Have you really decided to do that, Nannie, and not just come 
to tell me something you forgot to say to me?” 

“Indeed I never was more in earnest in my lifel My fears are 
all gone, or rather they are as nothing to the lonesomeness I felt 
when I saw you going from me and I realized how long it might be 
before I saw you again.” 

“Hurrah 1 Hurrah for you, you sweet little wife of minel” 

64 






nikxjkkukd I.\ lifting TTIG bride into A CROTCH OF THE TREE, BT^ 
BEFORK TIE ('OULD cJ.lMB El’ THE BUTJ. WAS UPON HIM. 


(Pai.’F. JG I 




Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

and Billy began to prance around in the water so he nearly drowned 
her. 

“My, but this water feels good and cool to me after my long hot run 
to catch up with you,” said Nannie. 

“Won’t Stubby and Button be surprised when they see you come 
trotting back with me?” 

“Yes, and they will think I am the biggest goose that ever lived.” 

“But a fine one at that, for both Stub and Button are very fond of 
you.” 

After Billy and Nannie left them. Button said to Stubby: “Well, 
what shall we do with ourselves while waiting for Billy’s return?” 

“I don’t know,” said Stubby, “but when I went over to that big 
barn you see the other side of the road, looking for Nannie, I met 
the cutest, curliest Saint Bernard puppy you ever saw. I guess I 
will go back and play with it awhile. And by the way. Button, I 
saw a spotted cat over there too, so you better come along with me 
and probably we can manage to pass away the time happily until 
Billy’s return and get a good square meal or two besides.” 

When they came within a short distance of the big barn they saw 
the haymow door was open and on the ledge basking in the sun lay 
the spotted cat Stubby had seen when he was there before. She 
seemed to be eating something nice and juicy. “I*t must be a 

65 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

mouse,” thought Button. When he got right under the door, he 
meowed: “Good-morning, Mrs. Spot!” 

This so surprised the cat that she let fall from her mouth what she 
was eating and it fell at Button’s feet and he discovered immediately 
that it was the head of a squab. 

“Excuse me,” meowed Button, “I did not mean to startle you. I 
thought you had seen me coming. Wait a minute and I will bring 
up to you this delicious morsel you have just dropped.” 

Not to be outdone in politeness, the spotted cat meowed back: 

“Oh, no! Don’t trouble yourself to bring it back. I have plenty 
more and if you would care to have some and will come up here, I 
can give you all you can eat.” 

“I am sure that sounds most alluring. I’ll be right up if you 
will tell me how to get there.” 

“Wait a minute and I will come down and show you the way.” 
And before Button expected her, the spotted cat crawled out of a 
hole from under the barn. Just then the cat saw Stubby for the 
first time and not knowing he was with Button, he spit and flew at 
him in a rage and would have scratched his eyes out before Stubby 
could have defended himself had not Button meowed : 

“Don’t touch him. He is my friend and won’t hurt you. He 
only came over to visit the little puppy while I talked to you.” 

The spotted cat apologized most profusely and invited Stubby to 

66 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

join them at their feast of squab up in the hayloft. But when 
Stubby tried to squeeze through the hole under the barn he could 
not, so he was forced to stay outside with thoughts of having a whole 
squab dropped down to him from the loft. 

“But how comes it that you have so many squabs to eat at one 
time?” asked Button. 



this afternoon and these squabs were raised to serve at the wedding 
feast. But the boxes their nests were made in, up in the pigeon loft 
just over our heads, broke loose and spilled out all the young squabs 
and no one knows it but me and the mother pigeons. Haven’t you 
observed how excited the old pigeons are and how they keep flying 
in and out of the loft looking for their babies? My, but there will 
be a terrible commotion at the house when they discover that the 
squabs are gone. So come ahead and follow me. We must hurry 
and cat our fill before the people at the house discover their loss.” 

67 






CHAPTER VII 


WILD EXCITEMENT IN THE BARNYARD 

HE spotted cat led Button under the floor of the barn 
until he came to a round hole in the floor that led to the 
main barn where the grain bins were. Through this 
hole they squeezed themselves and from there crossed 
the barn floor to a ladder that led up into the haymow. 

Once in the hayloft they hurried over to the door that was directly 
under the window where the pigeons went in and out to their nests, 
but there on the hay, wriggling and crying, were the baby squabs 
who opened their mouths so wide they nearly fell over backwards 
when they heard the spotted cat and Button approaching. They 
thought every sound was their mothers coming to feed them. 

“Now help yourself, Mr. Button. Pick out the plumpest, and fall 
to. But before we begin we better drag to the door a couple of 
squabs and drop them down to your friend.” 

Though their intentions were good, only trouble came from it, for 
just as the squabs fell from the open door, the farmer happened to 
be passing and they hit him on the head. This surprised him 

69 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

greatly and he immediately came running up into the hayloft to see 
what had happened to his squabs. 

And there he found that a whole row of boxes which held the 
nests had fallen down from the upper window into the hay and 
spilled out nearly all of his nice fat squabs that were to be one of 
the delicacies at the wedding feast. This was bad enough, but it 
infuriated him to find a big stray cat and his own cat eating them 
up as fast as they could and he grabbed up a pitchfork that was 
sticking up in the hay and ran toward them. 

Button saw by the angry gleam in his eye that he would as soon 
run the pitchfork into them as not, so he ran for the door, preferring 
to take the risk of having his neck broken by the fall to being run 
through with the pitchfork. 

The loft was high — at least fifteen or eighteen feet from the 
ground — but Button took the leap without a moment’s hesitation, 
not even casting his eyes down to see where he was going to land, for 
he had felt the prongs of the fork prick his tail as he left. 

Imagine his surprise on landing to find himself sitting on the 
broad back of a big Durham bulll Also imagine the surprise of 
the bull at having a pincushion land on his back filled with pins that 
stuck into him when he was doing nothing but standing quietly in 
the yard! 

Button had scarcely touched his back when the bull bounded for- 

70 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

ward. Of course this made Button stick his claws deeper into the 
hide of the bull to keep from falling off, and of course this hurt the 
bull and made him try to shake otf whatever was on his back. He 
started around the yard on a run, jumping up and down and shaking 
himself, but no matter what he did the sharp prickling thing on his 
back stuck on. 

Just then he spied a little dog coming around the corner of the 
barn. He hated dogs at any time and now being hurt and cross 
and looking for some person or animal to vent his spite on, he 
started for the dog who was no other than Stubby. 

Seeing Button on the bull’s back and the bull running around like 
mad. Stubby barked and ran up to the bull to try to drive him into 
a corner of the barnyard and keep him there just long enough for 
Button to loosen his claws which had become embedded in the bull’s 
hide by this time, and give him a chance to jump off. 

But Stubby missed his calculations. He thought the bull was too 
fat to run fast, so he ran straight toward him, barking as he went. 
But alas! with a lunge forward the bull’s horns slipped under 
Stubby and tossed him up in the air so high that he thought he must 
surely be going on up over the moon. Then all of a sudden he 
started to come down and from the speed he knew when he hit the 
ground that the breath would be knocked out of him so hard that it 
would kill him. Just when he had made up his mind that he had 


71 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to die, he hit something soft and opening his eyes to see what it was, 
he found he had fallen in the middle of a load of hay. 

Now when the bull saw Stubby up in the hay, he tried to get to 
him and went bellowing round and round 
the hay wagon, butting his head into the 
hay and trying to scratch Button off by 
rubbing his sides against the load. 

But the first time he did this, with a 
mighty pull Button loosened his claws 
and with a spring he found himself 
safely on top of the load beside 
Stubby. 

Just at this critical moment 
Billy and Nannie came trotting 
into the barnyard and the bull 
ran straight for them with 
head lowered ready to toss 
them over the barn. But 

this time he had met something that could hook and 
butt quite as hard and much faster than himself. And when he got 
to the place where he had seen two goats standing, he found no goats 
in front of him, but one on either side of him sticking their long 

72 




Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

horns into him. With a bellow of rage he ran forward and Billy 
and Nannie chased him until they came to a little shed whose door 
was open. Into this they dodged and let the bull go raving and 
bellowing to his heart’s content. 

And while they describe their sensations to each other, I will tell 
you what became of Spot, for that was the name of the black and 
white spotted cat. When her master went after Button with the 
pitchfork, she ran up the side of the barn and hid on one of the raft- 
ers away up high where her master could not possibly reach her. 
And there she stayed until her master left the loft. When he did 
so there was murder in his eye, for he had taken one look out the loft 
door just in time to see Button riding on the back of his pet Durham 
bull, and it was at that moment the bull tossed Stubby up on the 
load of hay. 

“I have them now!” he cried. “I’ll run into the house and get 
my gun and shoot both of them. I won’t have any stray dog and 
cat coming round here and eating up my squabs and sticking their 
claws into my prize bull’s back!” 

The minute Spot’s master left the barn, she climbed down from 
the rafters and going to the door meowed to Button and Stubby who 
were still on the load of hay only a short distance from the door. 
She told them to jump off the load and hide somewhere as her master 

73 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

had gone to the house for his gun and he intended to shoot them on 
sight. “But don’t go away. Hide until dark and then come back 
and we will feast on what is left from the wedding supper.” 

“All right,” they meowed and barked, and jumping from the op- 
posite side of the load of hay from which the bull was still pawing 
the earth and bellowing with rage, they ran to an empty corn crib 
at the further side of the barnyard. They crawled up through a 
hole in the floor of the crib and found a place of shelter as no one 
would ever think of looking for them there. Besides being safe. It 
was situated in a very advantageous place, for from its latticed sides 
they could see the farmhouse between the end of the barn they had 
just left and the cluster of sheds and outhouses. Now they could 
see everything that went on, both in the barnyard and at the house. 
They could see the bridegroom, the minister, and all the guests 
arrive, to say nothing of the bridal procession they could watch as 
it left the house on its way to the church whose tall, sharp steeple 
they could see piercing the clear, blue sky. 

“Here Spot’s master comes now, running around the barn with 
his shotgun in his hand and the Saint Bernard pup at his heels.” 

Just as the farmer came around the corner and was looking wildly 
in all directions for the cat and dog that had eaten his squabs and 
hurt his bull, the bull spied him and being of a cross, disagreeable 
nature, he wished to vent his anger on someone. Here was a good 

74 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

chance, a man and a dog. He cared not that the man was his master 
and that the dog had never even so much as barked at him. They 
were something to hurt and he wished to make someone smart 
and burn as did the scratches that Button had inflicted on his 
back. 

Consequently Farmer Stevenson was more than surprised when 
his own bull came toward him at full speed, bellowing as he came. 
And he had just enough time to turn and run for his life before the 
bull was upon him. Then the chase began. Mr. Stevenson headed 
for the house with the bull close at his heels. He would have 
caught him had the bull not spied the dog and ducked his head to 
toss the poor puppy up in the air to land on the shed roof. Then 
the bull continued the chase and he caught Mr. Stevenson’s coat 
tails which were flying out behind him in his mad flight and ripped 
the coat straight up the back from hem to shoulder. His long sharp 
horns did not touch Mr. Stevenson and luckily he escaped through 
an open gate into the yard of the farmhouse and slammed it in the 
bull’s face. 

As it shut it hit the bull in the nose which hurt him considerably 
and made him madder than ever. Now he began to kick and paw 
the gate down. It held for awhile, but when he threw his big broad 
sides against the fence, it gave way and a whole section fell into the 
yard. The bull walked over it, bellowing and shaking his head as 

75 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

he made straight for the kitchen door, through which he had seen 
Mr. Stevenson disappear. 

Now here was a pretty how-de-do — a wedding in preparation in 
the house with the guests about to come and a mad bull running wild 
on the premises. The maids preparing the wedding supper were 
scared nearly out of their lives and went fluttering and squealing 
around the kitchen like a flock of chickens. The mother of the 
bride and the bridesmaids looked out the upper story window in 
alarm while the bride fainted for fear the groom would arrive on 
the scene and the bull would kill him. Of course Mr. Stevenson 
would shoot him at any minute but he did not want to kill his prize 
full-blooded, pedigreed Durham bull and sell the carcass for beef, 
as this would make him lose three thousand dollars, the amount at 
which the bull was valued. He was hoping the bull would quiet 
down and go back into the pasture if he saw no one to infuriate him. 
But how was he to get out of the house and warn the guests, who 
would soon be coming? He could go out the opposite side of 
the house, but what good would that do, for he must shut the 
bull out of the barnyard and he could not do that without being 
seen. 

“Milly,” he said to one of the maids, “peek out of the window and 
see what he is doing now.” 

Milly looked out and saw the bull standing but a few feet from 

76 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

the window pawing the earth and throwing it over his shoulder in 
his mad rage, bellowing all the time so loudly you could have heard 
him a mile away. 

“Oh, it is terrible the way he is pawing and hooking all the gera- 
niums out of the bedl” 

“I know why he is doing that,” spoke up another of the maids. 
“It is because they are red and they say a bull hates red. He thinks 
someone is waving a red flag at him. Look! Look! There go two 
plants he has uprooted flying up in the air! Let us beat on a tin 
pan and see if we can’t attract his attention before he uproots the 
whole bed.” 

So they brought a tin pan and opening one of the windows began 
to pound on it. The bull heard, paused, listened, looked, and see- 
ing two or three faces at the window stopped pawing and with a 
mighty roar he rushed for the window. It was too high and small 
for him to go through as it came halfway up to his shoulder, but he 
raised himself on his hind legs and tried to get his head in just the 
same. 

Mr. Stevenson had shut the window when he saw him coming. 
This made no difference to Mr. Bull; he just ran his sharp horns 
along the outside of the window and every pane was shattered and 
fell over his head. 

Just at this crucial moment Mrs. Stevenson called from upstairs 

77 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

that she could see two or three buggies coming down the road with 
wedding guests in them. They must be stopped for in his present 
state of mind the bull would gore the horses and perhaps kill some 
of the people. 

“It is the minister in one buggy and the groom in another,” called 
out one of the bridesmaids who was keeping watch at one of the 
upper windows. “What shall we do? What shall we do?” she 
wailed. 

“One of you girls,” said Mr. Stevenson, “keep banging on the 
pans to attract his attention while I sneak out of the house and go 
warn them.” 

He ran down the front yard trying to get to the road to stop the 
guests before they turned into the lane. Then the bull, on hearing 
the horses coming, stopped trying to get in the window and turned 
his head in the direction the sound came from. He rolled his upper 
lip over the end of his nose as bulls do sometimes when intent on 
smelling something that is far away, and immediately he detected 
the odor of perspiring horses. Now here was something nice and 
big to vent his spleen on. He stopped pawing the ground and butt- 
ing the window, and was about to turn and run out after them when 
to his dismay who should he see coming toward him but those two 
horrid goats that had butted him and stuck their long horns into him 
in the barnyard. He did not wait for them to come nearer, but 

78 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

hustled his fat self round the corner of the house and ran down the 
yard toward the road as fast as his great bulk would let him. 

He arrived at the foot of the yard just as the first buggy reached 
the lane. On seeing the horse, the bull threw his 
whole weight against the rail fence and it fell over 
like a pack of cards and over it he went 
after the horse. 

The horse hitched to this buggy was 
afraid of bulls, so he 
reared, plunged and then 
bolted down the road 
on a dead run with 
his driver pulling on 
the reins as hard 
as he could. The 
young lady 
with him hung 
on to the side 
of the buggy 
to keep 

being thrown out, while her hat flew off and lit on one of the bull’s 
horns. This he soon demolished by lowering his head and throwing 
the hat in the mud and stamping on it. 

79 




Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

This horse having escaped, the bull ran down the road to meet 
the other buggies h'e saw coming. The next horse, driven by the 
minister, turned straight around in the woods, upsetting it and 
throwing the minister over a rail fence, where he landed in a 
squashy turnip bed, leaving the tails of his long coat as he went over 
the fence. 

The third horse became frightened also and in trying to turn 
around he ran his buggy into the overturned one, locking the wheels 
and breaking himself loose, as well as throwing out the groom, for 
it was none other than the groom himself in this buggy. Then with 
a snort of fear he ran down the road with the bull close to his heels. 

When he recovered from his dazed feeling, the groom found him- 
self in the muddy road under the two overturned buggies. He 
tried to extricate himself and get out from under the wreckage, 
while his bride, who had seen all this from her window, fainted 
again when she saw his buggy upset. But presently the man whose 
horse had bolted down the road succeeded in getting him under con- 
trol. He came back, and with his help and that of Mr. Stevenson 
and the minister, they soon were able to rescue the groom from the 
wrecked buggies. And just as soon as this was done they shut the 
gate and reinforced it with logs so that should the bull come back, 
he could not break the gate down and come into the farmyard after 
them again. 


8o 



“M\ MOTPTEi; STRKTCHKD OI^T IlKR. TRIWK AM* I’HKEW THE HUXTER OYER 

JIER HEA!'.” 


(Pai:k 141)) 





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r . iTr 



L^ ~ i' i,'^' ■ • V.. ■ >v?j( 

5?^r.r • ‘rri; m^j- '- “ . -...^^ 



• * t 


tf.;::.L-i 

»V‘- '-?•*■ '■”■ 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

Nothing else happened and very soon the bride and groom were 
locked in each other’s arms, rejoicing over the narrow escape of the 
groom. The minister was given a coat in place of the one with the 
tails torn off and everyone else calmed down and the wedding prep- 
arations went on as smoothly as if no bull had ever been around. 

“Well, I never saw such a mix-up as that before, did you. Stub?” 
said Button. 

“No, I never did,” replied Stubby. “Hear that Saint Bernard 
pup howl! He has been up on the shed roof ever since the bull 
tossed him there and he is afraid to jump down. I’ll bark to him 
to go to the other side and jump on a heap of straw I see piled up 
against it.” 

“You better not. Someone will hear you and find out our hiding- 
place.” 

“Oh, no, they won’t hear me! They are all too much excited 
over their narrow escapes from being gored to death to hear me. 
Besides I won’t bark loud.” 

This he did and soon the Saint Bernard puppy had joined them 
in their hiding-place and he was telling them all about the runaway 
horses and wrecked buggies that he had seen from his high place 
on the shed roof. 


8 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE BURGLAR IN THE CELLAR 

LL the time the Saint Bernard puppy had been telling 
Stubby, Button and Spot what the bull had done the 
barnyard had been filling with buggies, wagons, au- 
tomobiles, hay wagons with straw in them to cover the 
rack and quilts to cover the hay so it would not stick in the girls’ 
dresses. Soon the yard was filled to its greatest capacity and the 
guests were beginning to drive into the yard where the corn crib was 
in which the Chums were hiding. It was a beautiful day and all 
had come to the wedding that could possibly get away. 

“Boys,” said Button, “we will have to find another hiding-place 
for all these wagons and buggies have shut off our view.” 

“Where shall we go?” asked Stubby. “Spot, you and the pup 
here know the place better than we do so perhaps you can suggest 
some place.” 

“Let me see,” said Spot, holding her paw up to her face as old 
ladies do their forefingers to their mouths when thinking. “The 
only place I can think of is the cellar. But how we are to get in 

83 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

there without being seen by some of these people is more than I can 
tell.” 

“I have itl” spoke up the puppy. “We can sneak out of here 
and go away around back of the barn and farm buildings and 
through the orchard until we come to the fence that separates the 
orchard from the farmhouse lawn. Then we can crawl through 
and approach the house from the back. There will be no one 
around there now as they are all busy at the other side of the house 
where the summer kitchen is. We can creep along from the back 
of the house to the side window of the cellar that is always left open 
and we can jump through. It is over the potato bin which is in one 
corner of the cellar and we can stay in the bin until the family start 
for church. Should anyone come into the cellar they would not 
see us, as it has high sides and, besides, it is always dark in that 
corner.” 

“You’re right,” agreed Spot. “That will be a dandy place to 
hide. But hiding isn’t the best part of the plan. We will be in the 
house to eat up what goodies are left from the feast. And we might 
be able to find and pick up a tidbit or two from the floor while they 
are at the church. If we were outside the house, we would probably 
be locked out, but once inside we don’t care if we are locked up for 
an hour or so.” 

This plan was considered a good one and in a few minutes you 

84 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

could have seen first a white cat with black spots poke her head 
under the orchard fence and peer around cautiously in all directions 
before pulling her whole body through the fence. Then she made 
running leaps toward the open cellar window and in a jiffy dis- 
appeared through it. Close on her heels came a black cat, and 
then a puppy, but he was too big to crawl through the hole. He 
had to stop and dig it out so he could squeeze through and while 
he was doing this, a little stubby-tailed dog took a flying leap over 
the fence, followed by two white goats, all of which made straight 
for the cellar window and jumped in. But just before they jumped, 
Stubby and Button stared in amazement at Billy and Nannie, for it 
was the first time they had seen them since their return. How was 
it that Nannie had come back with Billy? But they hadn’t time 
to ask any questions now. 

The potatoes were piled high in the bin close up against the wall. 
This eased their jump from the window to the floor. But when 
they landed, it sent the potatoes rolling and they came bang up 
against the wooden partition at the bottom and made a racket. 
It chanced that a maid was just leaving the cellar with a pan of 
milk. Hearing the racket in the dark corner of the cellar, she 
thought it must be a rat. Being particularly afraid of rats, she 
screamed and ran for the stairs. In her hurry she stepped on the 
front of her dress which threw her on her face on the stairs. She 

85 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

dropped the pan of milk which turned over and went rattlety bang 
to the foot of the stairs and along the cellar floor. 

“Now there will 
the dickens to payl” 
claimed Billy. “That 
maid has made such a 
racket, she will bring 
the whole household 
upon us. We must 
hide quickly. Nannie, 
run under the cellar 
stairs and squeeze your- 
self in the corner as far 
as you can. I’ll hide 
behind that big packing 
box in the opposite 
corner.” 

All this noise attracted the 
attention of Mrs. Stevenson, 
hastened to the cellar door. 

“Why, Huldal What is the matter? Are you hurt?” 

“No, ma’am, but there is a rat in the cellar and I am afraid he 
will get me.” 




86 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“You silly girl to make such a fuss over a rat! It won’t hurt 
you. Don’t you know that they are more afraid of you than you 
are of them?” 

“Maybe, but I hate them and am afraid they will get on me. Do 
help me, Mrs. Stevenson! I am all mixed up in my dress and 
can’t get up.” 

She had stepped on the front breadth and instead of stepping off 
it backward, she was still walking up the front, tearing it as she 
struggled. 

While Mrs. Stevenson was helping her, something deplorable 
happened. Stubby sneezed. He absolutely could not help it. 

“What was that? Who is there?” asked Mrs. Stevenson in a 
frightened voice. She thought right away that it was no rat Hulda 
had heard, but a burglar who had hidden himself in the cellar to steal 
the wedding presents when the family had left the house to go to 
the church. She grabbed Hulda by the shoulder and they both 
flew up the stairs and slammed the door. 

“Now we are in for it!” said Stubby. 

“Yes, they will tell the men and in a jiffy they will be down here 
with sticks, canes, stove-pokers and brooms,” said Button. “We 
must get out of here as quickly as we can, and stay out until they 
are gone.” 

“But how am 1 to get out?” said the puppy. “I am so fat that I had 

87 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to squeeze through the window and then fall in, but I can’t jump up.” 

“You are about the color of potatoes,” said Stubby. “Get in the 
darkest part of the bin, keep your eyes closed and your head be- 
tween your paws and you will look like an old piece of carpet or 
a fuzzy mat. But on your life don’t open your eyesl They will 
shine in the darkness and give you away. Now hurry and crawl 
down and I will roll a lot of potatoes on you.” 

“Hark! I hear someone coming. I must go!” and Stubby 
hunched himself, jumped through the window and joined the others 
just as three men armed with revolvers, pokers and canes, carrying 
lamps and candles high over their heads, entered the cellar. The 
puppy could hear them but he did not move and he kept his eyes 
shut and his head between his fore paws. He could hear them rum- 
maging between boxes and barrels and talking all the time. They 
loudly ordered the burglar or whoever was there to come out and 
give himself up before they found him and beat him to a jelly. 
“If you come out and give yourself up, we won’t beat you,” they 
promised. 

At that moment one of them stepped on a board and it flew up and 
hit him on the shins. This noise made the man with the lamp jump 
and he hit the chimney on a hanging shelf which knocked it crooked. 
To straighten it he put it down on the packing box Billy was hiding 
behind. But horrors! what was that he heard? Just like someone 

88 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

breathing, and at that moment he spied two big eyes looking 
at him. He dropped the lamp into the box and it would soon have 
set fire to the house as it was full of old papers, had not Billy, in 
his endeavors to save himself, upset the box. This turned its con- 



cellar and jumped out the window. 

In his haste to escape he ran into one of the other men, knocked 
him over and out went the candle. The remaining man stepped in 
the spilt milk and fell in front of the two whose lights had gone 

89 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

out. There all three lay in a heap on the floor imagining the burglars 
were after them. At this moment someone opened the cellar door 
and let in a flood of light. Seeing three men on the floor with their 
legs and arms flying, they thought it was a fight, so shut the door, 
bolted it and ran for help. 

When Nannie saw the men fighting and Billy jumping out the 
window, she left her hiding-place and started to follow Billy. But 
alasl in her hurry she did not see a tub of cucumber pickles and 
she fell head first into it. She stepped out with brine dripping 
from her hair into her eyes and a lot of little pickles strung on her 
horns. When Billy saw her, he rolled on the grass with laughter. 

“The fool I” exclaimed one of the men on the floor. “Why didn’t 
she leave that door open so we could see?” 

At last they untangled themselves and got up and tried to find 
the stairs in the dark. Having no matches, they could not relight 
their candles. The only ray of light in the whole cellar was a faint 
gleam from the window over the potato bin. One man went to- 
ward it, hoping to find it large enough to crawl through, but when 
he was within a few feet of the bin, he thought he heard someone 
breathing. He listened. Yes, it was surely a person breathing 
regularly. This frightened him until his legs trembled under him 
and he tried to run but they wobbled so he could not. He tried 
to call to the other men but his tongue clove to the roof of his 

90 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

mouth and he could not make a sound. While this was happening, 
another man had started for the window and in groping his way 
toward it he touched the frightened man who was standing still in 
the dark. He turned to run he knew not where, but just as far as 
he could get from the man he had touched. In his hurry he did 
not heed where he was going. The next thing he knew he stubbed 
his toe and he too fell headlong into the tub of pickles. 

By this time more men appeared at the head of the stairs and 
came down into the cellar with a lantern. They searched and 
searched but all they found was the three frightened men and a 
little old woolly mat in the potato bin. So they left the cellar, some 
arguing there was no burglar there, while the others argued there 
was. What could sneeze and breathe and feel like flesh and blood? 
The last the puppy heard of them they were calling one another 
cowards and fools, as they slammed the cellar door. But he heard 
one man say: “I thought I came to a wedding, but I seem to have 
come to a bull fight and a burglar chase I Goodness knows what 
else will take place before they are really married I” 

Now this wedding was to be an old-fashioned one like they have 
in the rural districts of Europe, where the bride and the brides- 
maids in all their finery without hats or wraps, the groom and all 
the guests walk in a procession along the country roads or over 
the fields to the church. The Chums had decided to wait until the 


91 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

wedding procession left the house and then go into the kitchen and 
look for goodies. At last all had gotten over their fright of bulls 
and burglars and were smiling and happy as they left the house, 
little dreaming of what was going to happen then. 

The Chums all hid behind some bushes in the yard to watch the 
bridal party start. First came a boy of about sixteen, dressed in 
knee breeches, white shirt and blue velvet waistcoat, with a tiny red 
cap embroidered in gold set on one side of his head. As he led th': 
procession he played on a much beribboned flute. 

At a signal the bride and groom followed him, and behind them 
the father and mother of the bride, and after them came the rest 
of the guests two by two. It was a bright, beautiful day and the 
wedding procession made a very picturesque sight as it wound its 
way across the green fields and over the stile at the bottom of the 
hill. There too they had to cross a little gurgling stream on stepping 
stones and then wend their way up a shaded path to the church on 
the top of a hill. 

But the fates must have been against them that day, for they 
were only half way up the first hill when who should come running 
at full speed toward them but the big Durham bull chased by none 
other than Billy Whiskers himself and another goat like him. Once 
the bull stopped and turned to show fight, but Billy and Nannie 
made a plunge at him from either side and ran their sharp horns 

92 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

into him. He turned and raced down the road. All he thought 
of then was to reach his stall in the barn where he would be safe from 
these awful bossy, cross old goats that were so quick he could not 
get a chance to hook them, kick them or stamp on them. 

But alas 1 when he reached the lane, the gate was locked and barred. 
Though he threw his weight against it, he could not break it down. 
He ran on down the road, looking for some place to slip in to 
dodge the old goats. He had gone only a short distance when he 
came to a place where the bars were down where the wedding 
party had passed through. 

Through this he went, and seeing a lot of people in the distance 
he ran toward them, thinking perhaps they would drive off his tor- 
mentors. All unconscious of impending disaster, the wedding party 
was wending its way to the church, keeping time to the music of the 
flute and some of the guests singing as they went. It must have 
been the singing that prevented their hearing the bull’s heavy tread 
as he ran toward them. He had gotten within fifty feet of them 
when he stopped running and gave a loud bellow. 

If a thunderbolt had sounded from the clear sky, they could not 
have been more surprised, and of course it threw them in a panic. 
They ran in all directions, the men either dragging the girls along 
with them or catching them up in their arms and running for safety. 
The poor old father and mother of the bride were so stunned and 

93 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

frightened they could not move from where they stood. They just 
dropped to their knees and prayed to be saved. 

The bride, groom and piper were considerably ahead of the 
others. The groom, seeing a big tree with low limbs ahead of him, 
picked the bride up in his arms and ran to it. He succeeded in 
lifting the bride into a crotch of the tree between two big limbs, 
but before he himself could climb up, the bull was upon him. He 
dodged around the trunk of the tree and the bull plunged full force 
into it. He butted it so hard that for a few seconds he stood still, 
showing it had hurt him badly. Then seeing a long white thing 
flopping in the breeze and wrapping itself around his head and 
tickling his nose, he backed off to give it another butt. Just then 
those terrible goats came running after him again and gave him 
such a hooking and butting that he turned and ran for the ravine. 
Billy and Nannie were close on his heels, hooking him every time 
he tried to slow down to get breath. 

But alas! He was carrying the bride’s veil away with him. It 
had become fastened around his horns and when he started to run it 
had jerked it from the bride’s head. After the wedding party had 
watched the two goats chase the bull down into a ravine out of sight, 
they all got together again and one of the bridesmaids saw the veil 
on the ground where it had fallen and ran and got it. After 
straightening it out, she put it on the bride’s head, not much the 

94 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

worse for its hard usage. The procession started again for the 
church, and I am happy to say that no other mishaps befell them. 
Had there, I am afraid the bride’s nerves would have given way en- 
tirely. 


95 



CHAPTER IX 


THE BRIDAL SUPPER 

ND now we will go back and see what the Chums did 
while the family was at the church. 

After they had watched the bridal party out of 
sight, they jumped through the cellar window and run- 
ning up the cellar stairs, they found to their joy that in the hurry 
the family had forgotten to shut the cellar door. So all they had 
to do was to walk into the kitchen. As they did so, the delicious 
odor of roast chicken, spiced ham, salads, jellies and untold goodies 
reached their nostrils. And there in the oven, all ready to be served, 
were the chicken and mounds of mashed potatoes whipped until 
they looked like heaps of snow they were so feathery and white, 
while beside them were dishes of candied sweet potatoes and pans 
of peas, turnips, and beets. On another table were extra wedding 
cakes, some covered with chocolate icing and others with white icing 
with English walnuts sprinkled on top, and piles of nut cakes and 
little spice cakes. On another were salads,, jellies, salted nuts, sweet 
pickles, sour pickles and red preserves, while between these dishes 

97 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

were plates heaped high with all kinds of sandwiches so daintily 
made that they would melt in one’s mouth. 

“My! Oh, my! Did you ever see so many good things all at 
one time in your life?” said Stubby. “They have enough to feed a 
regiment. We could all eat our fill and then they would have plenty 
left, but I think it would be a mean thing to do, especially after all 
the trouble the bride has gone through to-day. It would nearly 
kill her to come home and find all her wedding supper messed up. 
Besides, we shall find plenty of scraps to more than fill us up when 
they are through eating. And we can get them without any trouble 
whatever for they will set pails full of the scraps outside the door 
for Spot and the Saint Bernard puppy.” 

“I thing you are right. Stubby,” said Button and all the others 
agreed it would be a shame to touch the things. 

“Yes, I know,” replied the puppy, “but I am so dreadfully hungry 
and these things smell so good, I wish I could bite just one chicken 
wing.” 

“Oh, no! Then they would know that someone had been here.” 

“Look! See what I have found!” meowed Spot. 

They all looked and over in one corner of the kitchen under the 
table was a big pail heaped full of scraps and good things to eat. 

“Come here!” meowed Spot. “We can eat all this for this is the 
pail that holds the scraps they feed to the pigs.” 

98 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

In a jiffy they were all eating from the pail, each picking out 
the morsel they liked best. They ate and ate until the pail was 
empty, and they even ate up the scraps that fell on the floor. 

“It is too bad Billy can’t have some of this good stuff,” said 
Stubby. “I think I will go after him and bring him back so he can 
get some before the family returns.” 

With Stubby to think a thing was to do it, so he ran down the 
cellar stairs, jumped out the window and ran to the field where he 
had seen Billy and Nannie chasing the bull. After sniffing round 
a bit, he picked up the scent of Billy and away he went across the 
field down into the ravine where they had disappeared from sight 
when the wedding party was watching them. At the foot of the 
hill the bull had run into a little stream and Billy had followed him. 
Consequently Stubby lost the scent, but he soon found it by running 
downstream until he saw where the limbs of some low hanging bushes 
had been broken off and there were some cattle tracks in the soft 
mud. Climbing out here, he took up the scent again and was run- 
ning rapidly up a hill when he heard Billy baa: “Where are you 
going in such a hurry. Stub?” and looking up he saw Billy standing 
on a ledge of rock high above him. 

“Where is your bull?” Stubby asked. 

“Oh, he is worn out and lying down a little way from here.” 

“Well, leave him and come with me back to the farmhouse where 

99 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

you can get a splendid supper of chicken, potatoes, jelly and veg- 
etables of all kinds.” 

“Thank you very much. Stubby, for thinking of me, but you for- 
get that I prefer uncooked food and vegetables, grass and grain to 
meat and potatoes.” 

“You are right, I surely did forget. I was enjoying them so, all 
I thought was that I wished you could have some too.” 

“Stub, you are the most generous dog I ever knew — you are always 
thinking of your friends. I know if a friend were cold or in trouble 
that you would give away your skin and your head also, if they 
were not fastened to you. But I will come back with you an3rway, 
and watch the return of the bride.” 

When they reached the farmhouse they heard the puppy barking 
to them to come where they were. But though he barked and 
barked, they could not see him. It sounded as if his bark came 
from the roof of the carriage house. Presently, however, Billy 
spied him standing in an open door of the second story of the car- 
riage house. They hurried along until they stood under the door, 
then they called up to him to tell them how to get up where he was. 

“Go around to the back and you will see a big hole under the 
house. Crawl in that and you will see another hole in the floor that 
comes out at the foot of a pair of stairs that leads to where we are.” 

They hurried along but when they got there Billy was too big. 


lOO 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


He could not crawl through the hole though they dug it deeper. 
And even if they had succeeded in making it larger, the one in the 
floor could not be made big enough for him to get his horns through. 

“Never mind, Stubby; you go up to them. I’ll find some good 
place to hide,” which he did. He ^aw one of the low loads of hay 
and he and Nannie jumped up on 
it and lay down on one of the 
soft quilts. Both were 

soon fast asleep for they / — ) 

were tired from 
chasing the bull. 

How long 
they slept 
they did not 
know, but 
they were 
awakened by 
laughing, chat- 
tering voices beside the hay load and one girl was coaxing another 
to climb up the ladder first onto the load. 

“So they are coming up here, are they? Well, we will just duck 
our heads under this quilt and if they see our fur they will think it 
a white fur rug.” 



lOI 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

That is just what they did think. But it proved disastrous to 
Billy and Nannie, for a big fat girl weighing nearly two hundred 
pounds dropped down on them, half on Billy and half on Nannie, 
and nearly broke their backs. Billy let out a groan and raised 
his head. When he did that, it frightened her so that in rolling off 
him she rolled clear off the load and came down kerplunk on the 
opposite side of the wagon. At this moment another girl appeared 
at the top of the ladder, but on seeing the goats she screamed and 
fell over backwards, carrying the ladder with her. 

All this commotion brought their beaux to the scene and when 
they saw two billy goats standing on the hay load, they all laughed 
and made fun of the girls for being so afraid. One of the men 
jumped up on the load to drive them off, but he made the mistake 
of taking a club with him. Had he let them alone the goats would 
have jumped off the wagon and not hurt anyone. But the young 
fellow wanted to show off before the girls, so he hit Billy a crack 
with the club and the next thing he knew he was flying through the 
air over the girls’ heads and when he came down he landed in the 
pig pen, astride a big fat pig. He was not hurt in the least, only 
surprised, but his pride had had a bad fall and the girls all laughed 
at him, making it ten times worse. 

Billy and Nannie now jumped off the wagon and, kicking up 
their heels, they ran under the wagons and around the autos that 


102 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

were standing in the yard so fast that none of the men could catch 
them, and soon they disappeared behind the barn. From there 
they hid between three or four strawstacks where they could easily 
dodge anyone that should follow them. But no one did. Now the 
wedding guests had started to go home, it took but a little while to 
clear the barnyard of all the wagons, buggies and automobiles 
crowded in there. 

Soon everything was as still as if there had been no wedding or 
any other excitement. When it was nearly dark, the cats and dogs 
came out of the carriage house loft and found Billy and Nannie 
behind the strawstacks where they all spent the night. Early the 
next morning before anyone was astir in the farmhouse, our Chums 
bade the spotted cat and Saint Bernard puppy good-by and con- 
tinued their pleasure journey. 

“Here we have been away from home over a week and we have 
fooled along so that we are not more than one hundred miles from 
home yet.” 

“But what is the use of hurrying?” asked Button. “We are only 
out for pleasure.” 

“You are right, Button. And what do you two say to our not 
going to California as we have been there two or three times before, 
but to going directly west from here, visiting South Dakota, Wyo- 
ming, Montana, Idaho and Oregon? We would probably see a 

103 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

good deal of ranch, life and some magnificent mountain scenery as 
soon as we get beyond the desert and treeless plains of Dakota and 
part of Wyoming. It will be a much harder trip, but who cares? 
We are used to hardships since the Great War.” 

“We are with you I” barked Stubby and meowed Button. 

“Billy,” spoke up Stubby, “I believe we would have a much pleas- 
anter time if we followed some main railroad track. If we go 
straight in a northwesterly direction from here we will strike the 
Northern Pacific Railroad at St. Paul and by following that it will 
take us just where we want to go on the Pacific Coast. What is 
more, by simply going a little out of our way we can visit the Yellow- 
stone Park, one of America’s largest and most interesting natural 
parks. There tame bear, deer, buffalo and other wild animals 
rove about free, protected from the hunter by game laws. And 
what is more, we can see the wonderful hot geyser springs that 
throw sprays of boiling water up into the air from one hundred and 
twenty to one hundred and seventy feet high, for four-minute periods 
every sixty-five to seventy minutes. So regularly does one of these 
springs throw up this spray that it has been named Old Faithful. 
Then there are many other wonderful springs, falls and rivers to 
see there besides the native forest of huge trees two or three hundred 
years old.” 


104 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“That all sounds good to me, Stubby,” said Billy. “What say 
you, Nannie? For it will be something entirely new that none 
of us has ever seen before.” 

Nannie being in favor of the plan, they traveled steadily this 
way with few adventures or mishaps until they reached St. Paul. 
Here they prepared to stop to rest and have several good meals of 
meat before starting off on their long journey across the treeleess 
plains where there would be nothing but prairie dogs, sand birds’ 
eggs, and such things for Stubby and Button to eat and sagebrush 
and long, coarse grass for Billy and Nannie. As for water to 
drink, they did not know where in the world they would get it, as 
there is only one river of importance in North Dakota, the Missouri, 
and few streams in the country they would be passing through. 
But for all that, they were going to try it. 

They were all resting in a quiet back yard they had found. Button 
asleep on the top of a shed and Billy and Nannie on the ground be- 
neath him, when a big gray cat stuck its head through the gate that 
led into the alley. When he saw Billy, Nannie and Stubby asleep, 
he crept cautiously up to them and stood watching them as they 
slept. After he had scrutinized them all he wished to, he meowed 
two or three times in a low voice which did not awaken Billy, 
Nannie or Stubby, but did Button. He stood up and meowed back 

105 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to the cat which surprised it so it was about to run away, for it had 
not seen Button. 

“Don’t hurry away I” said Button. “Did you wish to speak to 
the goats or dog?” 

“Yes, if this one goat is the celebrated Billy Whiskers that has 
traveled all over the world and been in the Big War in Europe. I 
have an invitation for him.” 

“He is the one you are looking for then, for that goat is none 
other than the celebrated and world-renowned traveler, Billy 
Whiskers. And the dog beside; him is the same dog that has traveled 
with him and been in all the wars with him. The other goat is 
Nannie, his wife.” 

“You don’t mean to say that that little yellow dog is Stubby, Billy 
Whiskers’ lifelong friend and companion? If that is so, you must 
be Button, the celebrated big black cat that has also been his chum 
and traveling companion.” 

“You are right. I am his friend and chum but I don’t claim to 
be very celebrated.” 

“Well you are, and every dog, cat and goat in this city has 
heard of you three. And I hear you are now making a trip to the 
coast alone and on foot, and are going to brave the dangers of the 
desert and treeless plains. You little know what dangers you are 
facing. Many, many dogs and cats have tried but their bones now 

io6 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

lie bleaching on the desert sands or they have come back more dead 
than alive. I beg of you not to attempt it on foot and without some- 
one to look after you.” 

“Oh, don’t fear for usl We are too experienced travelers to 
be afraid of deserts and treeless plains. But I thank you for your 
solicitude in our behalf.” 

For quite a while Billy, Nannie and Stubby had been awake but 
had kept their eyes shut, pretending to be asleep. Now they opened 
them and spoke to the gray cat. 

“My friend,” said Billy, “will you kindly tell us how you heard 
we were coming here?” 

“Certainly I will tell you. When you were in Minneapolis some 
sparrows who had gone to roost in a cluster of lilac bushes in the 
park heard you talking to several dogs and cats who had gathered 
there to hear you tell of some of your adventures when in the 
Great War. And the sparrows were so interested that in the morn- 
ing they told the pigeons living on the court house roof they 
must find you and hear you speak on the War. 

“They flew in all directions but they could not find you until 
in the late afternoon they met a cat who had heard you talking the 
very evening before. She told the pigeon that you had all left 
Minneapolis for St. Paul early the next morning before the city 
was astir. And she added that you were traveling fast as you wished 

107 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to get across the treeless plains and semi-deserts you would have 
to cross before reaching the Yellowstone Park, at which place you 
were going to stop before continuing your journey to the Pacific 
Coast. The cat added that she had told a carrier pigeon to take 
the news that you were coming to St. Paul and for them all to be on 
the lookout for Billy Whiskers, the world-renowned traveler, mascot 
and fighter, who was on his way there with his two equally well- 
known Chums, Stubby and Button. 

“And so you see that is the way the news reached St. Paul. The 
sparrows told the pigeons, the pigeons told the cat, the cat told 
the carrier pigeon and the carrier pigeon told me, and both of 
us told every dog, cat, goat, donkey, horse and cow we met that you 
were coming and for them to speak to you if they chanced to see 
you and try to coax you to meet them in the park at twelve o’clock 
to-night and give them a reminiscence of your adventures and 
travels.” 

“I am sure it is more than kind of you to take all that trouble 
and interest in me and under the circumstances I don’t see how I can 
refuse to give a short talk.” 

“Thank you so much! Now I am going to ask another favor, and 
that is that your friends Stubby and Button will also give talks and 
relate some of their hairbreadth escapes when on their travels.” 

“Thank you very kindly,” replied Button, “but I am no speaker 

io8 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

and I refuse to take up the time that would shorten Billy’s talk.” 

“Oh, no I You don’t get out so easily, Mr. Button,” spoke up 
Billy. “You have to talk as well as I do. And you too. Stubby, so 
you need not try to sneak out of that gate, for you also have to speak 
or I won’t.” 

“That is it, Mr. Whiskers I Bring them up to the scratch so I can 
count on you three being in the middle of the park at twelve o’clock 
sharp to-night. I hope your wife also will honor us with her pres- 
ence.” 

“Yes, we will all be there unless we are locked up in the police 
station or some other bad luck befalls us.” 

“Au revoir then until to-night,” and with a profusion of thanks 
and scraping and bowing, the gray cat backed out the alley gate and 
disappeared to spread the news of the coming lectures to be given 
by Billy, Stubby and Button. 


109 


CHAPTER X 


A THRILLING EXPERIENCE 

S early as eleven o’clock sneaking dogs and cats, gallop- 
ing horses, mules and donkeys as well as slow walking 
cows could have been seen entering the park by all 
entrances and hurriedly hiding themselves behind and 
under bushes or in dark shady nooks. And it was a good thing 
that there were few policemen guarding the park at that time of 
night, and that what were, were mostly fast asleep on the benches 
in secluded spots, else all these loose animals without any owners 
would have excited comment and they would have been caught and 
carried off to the pound in the patrol wagon. But as they were 
only seen alone and not in groups and then only by disinterested 
autoists bent on getting home as quickly as they could, they were not 
molested. They kept coming and coming until scarcely a bush, 
tree or statue but concealed an animal hiding behind it waiting 
for the hour of twelve to strike. 

At last off in the city somewhere a clock was heard striking and 
on the last stroke of twelve, away out in the still moonlight night 



III 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

Billy, Stubby and Button and the gray cat stole out from some 
bushes they had been hiding in and proceeded to the center of the 
park. All the other animals did likewise and now there were three 
hundred of them standing in a semi-circle around Billy, Stubby, 
Button and the gray cat, who introduced the Chums to the assembled 
multitude as soon as the crowd became quiet. Billy began: 



“My dear friends 1 I feel most flattered to have been invited to 
address such a distinguished audience. And it will give me much 
pleasure to tell you of my adventures in foreign lands.” 

“One of the most exciting and thrilling adventures I ever had 
in my whole life was when I was in the Island of Sicily where the 


1 12 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

earthquake occurred that buried Messina, one of its largest cities, 
under the mud and dirt that was carried over the fallen city by 
the huge tidal wave which swept along the shore of that beautiful 
city, burying it under a coat of soft mud many, many feet deep. The 
earthquake was bad enough, but the tidal wave was much worse. 
Then to add to the worries and troubles of the inhabitants. Mount 
Etna, one of the largest active volcanoes in the world, was in a 
state of eruption and might at any moment cause another earth- 
quake or throw out a shower of hot ashes that would bury the 
remaining inhabitants under it as Vesuvius had buried the inhabi- 
tants of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 

“Now for the part I had in this excitement. As it happened, I 
chanced to be on the Island when all this occurred and not only on 
the Island, but in the very city of Messina. For days Mount Etna 
had been throwing out huge volumes of black and yellow smoke 
and occasionally great bowlders would be seen flying up with the 
smoke, followed by tremblings of the earth for many miles around. 
The smoke increased in volume, the rumbling and trembling of 
the earth became more severe with each earthquake and two or three 
small cone-shaped holes appeared on its sides through which molten 
lava poured forth like rivers of fire. When this happened, the 
peasants who lived on the mountain sides left their vineyards and 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

fled from the fast traveling rivers of lava before they could over- 
take them and bury them as well as their vineyards under their 
creepy, crawly molten streams. 

“I had always wished to see a volcano in action, and I was now to 
get my fill of the sight, for I came near staying too long and being 
buried also. I was standing gazing at its many cones — for Etna, 
unlike Vesuvius, has many, many small cones on its sides through 
which smoke and lava escape when it is in a state of activity. Well, 
as I said before, I was standing near the base of the mountain when 
I was thrown violently to the ground by an upheaval of the earth, 
and directly where I had been standing appeared a fissure crack three 
feet wide and many feet long that ran up the volcano’s side to a small 
cone. As I was picking myself up I saw the slow-moving, thick 
stream of lava begin to roll out through the crevice just made and 
come toward me. 

“Perhaps I did not pick myself up and begin to run! At least 
that is what I tried to do, but alasl I could not walk, much less 
run, for the constant shaking of the earth which threw me down re- 
peatedly and shook me up as easily as if I had been a rag goat. 
Bruised and bleeding as I was, I kept on trying to get off the moun- 
tain on to steady ground, but it seemed as if the whole mountain 
for a time was but a trembling mass ready to fly to pieces and destroy 
everything on it. 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“At last like a drunken man I stumbled and fell and as the sides 
of the volcano were very steep here, I rolled clear to the bottom, 
hitting stones and stumps and bouncing through the rows of grape- 
vines in the vineyards like a rubber 
ball. But at last I reached the bottom 
more dead than alive and stopped 
rolling. Not waiting to discover 
how badly I was hurt, I took to my 
legs and ran as I never have run 
before or since. 

“And while I was doing this, 
the big earthquake had laid 
Messina low and the tidal wave 
had swept over it and washed 
the sides of their plaster homes 
away, leaving the inside of t 
front rooms exposed to view, showing 
the bedrooms with bed, 
dresser and chair just 
where the inhabitants had 
left them. But alas, 
water had washed the plaster from the walls around and over them 
so that they were completely embedded in the soft plaster and mud 

IIS 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

and could not be gotten out by one unless they ran the danger of 
pulling the whole house down on their heads. And many, many 
people were caught in their homes and buried in this soft mud, the 
same as the furniture. The tidal wave had come too fast for them 
to escape. My narrow escape from being dropped into that boiling, 
sizzling crater of molten lava was the most exciting adventure of 
my life. 

“I thank you, friends, for your close attention and I will now step 
aside and give Stubby a chance to tell you of one of his hairbreadth 
escapes.” 

With pawing the ground and bellowing in lieu of handclappings, 
the animals made night hideous for awhile with their applause. 
And at last Billy had to baa for them to stop or they would bring 
the police down upon them. 

Stubby being so small, they could not see him if he stood on 
the ground, so he had to jump up on Billy’s back and from there to 
a horse’s back and from there to a high vase of flowers. There he 
was above the heads of the animals and they could all see him 
when he talked. And he certainly looked cunning with his saucy 
little face, one ear cocked high on one side peeping out from among 
the flowers. 

“My dear friends,” began Stubby, “I am trembling in every limb 
at the thought of addressing such a distinguished crowd. Espe- 

ii6 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

cially after my friend Billy, who is a noted after-dinner speaker. I 
am no speaker and what I have to tell you will seem tame indeed 
after the recital of his wonderful escape.” 

“We are not critical,” called out the animals. “Go ahead and tell 
us anything, for we know you have been through the War and 
must have had many narrow escapes.” 

“Yes, I have. If you would care to hear of one of them I can 
tell you of one of the closest shaves which was at one of the battles 
Billy and I were in when we were in the war between Japan and 
Russia, and it happened when we were close up against the enemy 
trenches and not fighting at long distance. It was a couple of 
days before the final battle when my master was assigned some spy 
duty. This meant creeping out in the dead of night close up to the 
enemy’s front. I heard the order given and I determined to follow 
him. I knew he would forbid my going for fear I would be shot 
or maimed in some way, not because he was afraid I would give 
him away, for I had been with him on too many just such dangerous 
duties. So when he started I pretended to be asleep on the foot 
of his bed where I always slept. 

“But what do you think he did to keep me behind in case I should 
wake up? He threw a blanket over me and pinned me in with 
big safety pins, and then sneaked out. I only waited long enough 
for the sound of his footsteps to die away in the distance when I 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

tried to get out of the blanket. I felt sure there was some hole 1 
could crawl through where the pins were not too close together. 
But alas! He had done his work too thoroughly. There was not 
a space I could even get my head through, so I rolled over on my 
back and began to scratch and claw at that blanket like mad, but the 
fuzz and dust got in my eyes and my nose so I had to stop or be suf- 
focated, pinned in as I was. Consequently I stopped the clawing 
and scratching and tried to think of some other way to get out. 1 
did not want to bark as that would awaken the soldiers and they 
would find out my master was missing. This I did not want them to 
know, for when an officer goes out on a secret task, the fewer that 
know it the better. 

“As I lay there resting and wondering what I should do, the 
thought struck me: ‘Use your sharp teeth, chew a hole in the 
blanket and when big enough for you to get your nose through, tear 
it the rest of the way.’ And in a jiffy I was doing this and in 
another jiffy I was out and nosing around to get on the scent of 
my master. 

“This was easy to do, but to my surprise I found he had crawled 
under the back of the tent instead of going out the front way. What 
was more, I soon perceived that he was wiggling along on his 
stomach instead of walking. He did this until he had crossed the 
bare place where the tents were pitched and had entered a thick 

1 18 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

woods. Now of all dangerous places, this woods was the worst 
as it was filled with spies of both armies trying to find out the 
number of men on the opposite side or secure any information they 
could pick up. And one was as likely to be picked off by a bullet 
from one of his own men as by an enemy, unless he gave the 
proper signal and gave it quickly at that. When my master was 
well into the woods, he stood up and seemed to move cautiously 
from tree to tree, selecting big ones to hide behind. All of a sudden 
I came to a bush that had had half of its branches broken off, and 
all around it where the branches were off I could smell my master’s 
tracks. 

“ ‘Heigho!’ I thought, ‘I know what he is up to now. I have seen 
him play this same trick on the enemy before. He is covering 
himself with branches so when he stands still he will look like a 
bush and the enemy’s sentinel will pass him in the dark.’ To find 
his own way he had a tiny little electric searchlight which he could 
flash on for a minute at a time but so small was it that it had the 
appearance at a distance of being a firefly, should anyone see him 
using it. 

“But all of a sudden he seemed to be running and taking long 
bounds, for he could not possibly have taken such long steps as I 
found he was taking. It made it very hard to keep on his trail. 
Once when I lost it completely and was sniffing round for it I 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

came upon the scent of a Russian police dog. And I knew immedi- 
ately what had caused my master to use long steps and jumps. He 
was in flight. Probably he had found he was discovered and fol- 
lowed, or else a soldier and his dog had passed along the same trail, 
not knowing a man was fleeing before them. But I should soon find 
out. With my heart in my mouth, I started to trail the police dog, 
fearful of coming upon my dead master at every bend in the trail. 
Suddenly I came upon a big tree and there lying at its foot was a 
Russian soldier and his police dog, both dead but still warm. I 
knew from that that they had just been killed. And I thanked God 
that it was they and not my master that was dead. 

“I did not waste much time on them but began to hunt around to 
see in which direction my master had gone. But though I sniffed 
and sniffed and ran around like mad, I could not pick up the scent. 
Every scent led to the big tree where I had found the dead soldier 
and dog. All of a sudden, chancing to look up in the tree, what 
should I see but a firefly in the midst of a thick bunch of leaves! 
And of course I knew it was no firefly but my master’s little electric 
searchlight. He must have seen me at the same time I spied him, 
for in a second he came climbing down the tree and when he was 
down he patted me on the head and whispered in my ear : ‘Stubby, 
I thank God it is you! I heard you running around in the dead 


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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

leaves under the tree and I thought you were another Russian or a 
police dog.’ 

“Just then he went white and nearly fell over in a faint. At 
the same time I smelled fresh blood and on looking down I saw a 
bullet hole in his boot-leg from which the blood was oozing. The 
next second I licked his face and jingled my collar on his nose. He 
felt the cold contact of the bottle that was around my neck and raised 
himself enough to unfasten it and take a drink. This revived him 
enough for him to detach the adhesive plaster and sterilized cotton 
he had carefully rolled up in a tin box and fastened to my collar 
alongside the flask of brandy I always wore when out on scout duty 
for just such emergencies. My master had fixed it all up himself 
but had never had occasion to use it before. And my! but wasn’t 
I thankful that he had, and also thankful that I had insisted on 
following him? 

“With the brandy and the stopping of the flow of blood he soon 
was himself and he began to search the Russian soldier for any 
valuable papers he might have on him. To his joy, he found the 
man was not a common soldier but one of their most valued spies. 
For hidden in his helmet which had a false top, he found exceed- 
ingly valuable papers telling of the movement of the very division 
of the army that his division was now fighting. And just as he was 


121 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 



finishing searching the spy, he chanced to look at the police dog 
and saw under his long bushy hair a leather collar fastened round his 
neck. For some reason he took it off and examined it. And lo and 
behold! folded between the lining and the outside he found other 
dispatches but they were in cipher. 

“At this moment I heard stealthy footsteps approaching and wc 

just had time to 
sneak farther into 
the woods when 
another Russian 
soldier appeared 
and close on his 
heels was another 
police dog. The 
soldier passed us 
unheeded, taking 
my master for a 
bush. Not so the dog. He smelled me and also my master, and in 
the twinkling of an eye was upon me. He was three times my size 
and one of those long, wire-haired dogs with short, pointed ears, 
sharp nose and sharper teeth. He should have been named Sharp, 
for of all the dogs I ever came in contact with, this breed of dog is 
the sharpest witted for police service. 


22 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“But luckily for me, when he flew at my throat, his teeth closed 
not on my throat, which would have ended my life then and there, 
but on my metal collar and the tin box. He bit so hard that he broke 
the points off several of his teeth. And while he was preparing for 
a second bite and his master was approaching to bayonet me, my 
master bayoneted him as he was leaning against my master thinking 
he was a bush. The soldier fell dead. With the next thrust my 
master killed the dog and then we both hurried back to camp with 
no more mishaps, where we arrived just as the sun was coming up. 
And I think that was one of the closest calls to being killed I had 
while in the war, but of course I had many others. 

“I thank you all for caring to hear my story and will now bid 
you all good-night.” 

“My, oh me!” sighed an old cow. “I am all in a quiver from 
hearing that exciting tale and I don’t believe I have drawn a long 
breath since he began speaking.” 

“Nor I!” replied the cow by her side, while a third one said: 
“And here they are starting out to cross the continent in quest of 
new adventures. Wouldn’t you think they had had enough excite- 
ment and narrow escapes to last them for the rest of their lives?” 

“I surely would,” said the fourth cow. 


123 




















CHAPTER XI 


UNEXPECTED HAPPENINGS 

UTTON was about to begin to tell them one of his 
thrilling adventures when several policemen appeared 
and began clubbing and driving the animals out of the 
park. One of them said, “Sure and I would like to 
know how these animals got into this park without me seein’ um. 
Somebody must have drove um in thinking it was a free pasture.” 
Another one said, “But did ye ever see such a motley bunch? There 
are cows, horses, donkeys, sheep, goats, pigs, cats and dogs. Will 
ye tell me where they come from? When I just saw um I thought 
I must be dreamin’.” 

# 

“I did sure!” called out the first policeman. 

“Hey, there, stop runnin’ over them flower beds, will ye?” 

It was astonishing how all the animals seemed to disappear so 
suddenly. One would have thought the earth had opened and 
swallowed them whole. But Billy, Stubby, Nannie and Button 
had started for the Northern Pacific railroad track, which road 
they were to follow all the way to the Pacific coast. The gray 

1 25 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

cat showed them the way so they would not get on the wrong 
track as there were so many it would be hard to tell which was 
the right one. But the grey cat knew them well. So after that 
they said good-by to the cat and thanked him for all the trouble 
he had gone to to entertain them. 

“Not at alll Not at alll It was no trouble I assure you, 
but a pleasure to have the honor of introducing three such dis- 
tinguished travelers to my friends.” 

“Toot! Toot!” whistled a train behind them, and they jumped 
off the track just in time to save themselves from being run over. 
And as they stood at the side of the track, they read on the cars 
these signs which had been stretched the whole length of each one : 

“Ringling Brothers Three Ring Circus.”' 

“Gee Willikins!” exclaimed Billy. “If here isn’t the very circus 
I used to act in! Let’s stay over, Chums, and see if we can’t meet 
some of our old friends. It has been so many years that probably 
some of them are dead or sold to other circuses, but there are sure 
to be one or two of them left.” 

“Charmed to stay over!” said Button. 

“Delighted, I am sure!” replied Stubby. 

So the four of them ran down the track after the train until it 
came to a halt at its unloading platform. Then they pushed for- 
ward to the cars that held the wild animals and waited for their 

126 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

cages to be run off the train. Of course their cages were all shut 
up tightly with only breathing places at the top, so the people 
could not see the animals unless they paid to get into the circus. 
But the elephants and camels were so big they had not shut them 
up, and who should Billy see walking off the train but his old, 
old friend Jumbo, the oldest and finest specimen of elephant in 
America. He must have been nearly two hundred and fifty 
years old, his keeper said. Elephants frequently live to be 
that age and sometimes three hundred. After Jumbo came 
Maggie, dear old complaining Maggie, the old maid camel 
of the flock. 

When she saw Billy and Nannie, she gave a nervous cough, 
stretched her neck out as long as she could and squeaked out in 
her complaining cracked voice: “Billy Whiskers as sure as I am 
alive! I am really glad to see you, though the last time I saw 
you I remember I was so furious at you that I was ready to chew 
the hair off your back. But we will bury the hatchet and let 
bygones be bygones.” Just then a most terrific bellowing was heard 
coming from the elephants. Old Jumbo had spied Billy and was 
calling to him to come over where he was tied to a telegraph pole 
until the circus people had time to erect the tents. 

So Billy hurried over to where he was and introduced Nannie, 
Stubby and Button to him. And while they were taking in his 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


great size, he seized Billy round the middle of his body with his 
trunk and held him high in the air over his head, and then let 
out a trumpeting that nearly deafened poor Billy. 

“If you don’t say you 
are as glad to see me as I 
am to see you, I will crush 
every bone in your bodyl” 
trumpeted the elephant. 
Then the good-natured 
beast set Billy on his feet 
and began asking questions 
by the yard, like 
this: How was Nannie? 
Where had he been since 
they last met? Had he 
seen anything of the war? until 
Billy called a halt by saying, 
“One question at a time, if you please, 
and for every question you ask me, I 
am going to ask you one.” Billy 
^ began by asking these questions as fast as he could : 
“Have you the same ringmaster that I butted into the mud puddle? 
Is that green parrot that hated me so still alive? Is it better or worse 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

being with a circus these days than it was years ago when I was 
with you?” 

“Why, Billy Whiskers, how did you ever happen to get here?” 
heehawed a little burro. And turning, Billy beheld his old friend 
Bettina, the smallest burro on earth possessed with the longest ears, 
it was said, and the loudest voice. 

“Why, Bettina! Are you still with the circus? I thought you 
must be owned by some private party long ere this.” 

“And are you still traveling alone and doing as you please?” 
asked Bettina. 

“No, I am not alone this time. I am with my wife and friends,” 
and Billy baaed for Nannie, Stubby and Button to come over and 
be introduced. 

The elephant, camel, burro and the Chums were all standing 
talking and reminiscing on the long ago and asking after friends, 
when whiz! a rope flew over Billy’s head and he found himself 
lassoed and a voice saying: “That is the time I caught you off 
your guard, you old rascal! You see I remembered you of old 
and knew if I wanted to catch you I must do it quickly and talk 
to you afterwards, or you would kick up your heels in my face and 
be off. And thereby the circus would miss one of the best per- 
formers and drawing cards it ever had. Well, how are you, old 
fellow, and how has the world been using you? But I need not 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

ask, for my eyes tell me you look younger and more frisky than 
you did when last I saw you, and that was several years ago. I 
do hope your temper has cooled down some since last we met, 
for I have a distinct recollection of how fiery it was and of being 
butted over a fence and you running away from me.” 

Just then Stubby and Button each felt a rope slip around their 
necks and they found themselves like Billy — caught. 

When Billy saw this, he had to laugh to think how easily the 
three of them had been captured. They did not lasso Nannie for 
they knew she would follow Billy wherever he went. 

Stubby, who hated performing either in the circus or the movies, 
was most downcast, while Button looked mad enough to chew tacks. 

“Cheer up. Chums I The best is yet to cornel” said Billy. “I 
hear that this circus is on its way to the Pacific Coast, so if we 
stay with it we can be carried out there on their train instead of 
hoofing it. And all we will have to do will be to perform a trick 
or two each day. In the meantime they will feed and take good 
care of us clear to the Coast.” 

“I don’t want to be taken care ofl” whined Stubby. “I want 
to take care of myself and live a free life even if it is a harder one. 
And I am going to run away the first chance I get.” 

“So am I!” meowed Button. “Me for the wild free life I” 

“Those are generally my sentiments too,” said Billy, “but not 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

in this case when thousands of miles of treeless plains, semi-deserts 
and alkali pools are before me to hoof it over when I could ride. 
Me for diplomacy until I get across the continent and when once 
in California, the free life again.” 

“I guess you are right after all, Billy. When I think of those 
sandy wastes with only alkali water to drink, which means death, 
I believe I would prefer to perform a few tricks, much as I dis- 
like to, to enduring cold nights, hunger and lonesomeness out on 
the plains,” spoke up Stubby. 

“And I say the same,” said Button. 

“Oh, yes, do let’s stay with the circus 1 It will be so much safer,” 
said Nannie. 

Late that night after the evening performance was over and 
all the circus people but a few night watchmen had gone to bed, 
and most of them were asleep, the Chums, elephant, camel, burro, 
giraffe, zebra and Sacred White Bull from Egypt were all tied 
at equal distances round the sides of the circus, around which 
ring were the animal cages that belonged to the circus. 

Billy kept his eye on the watchman and soon he had the pleasure 
of seeing him throw himself on a bundle of straw and go fast 
asleep, and presently begin to snore. Billy had been waiting to 
assure himself that the watchman was sound asleep. When he 
heard the snores he stood up and walked as near the center of the 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

tent as his rope would permit. Then he baaed softly for the other 
animals to join him. And they all came as near as their ropes 
would let them. Then putting their heads down close to the 
ground so their voices would not carry so far, they began to talk 

to each other and have the 
time of their lives 
relating the experi- 
ences they had 
had and ex- 
changing gos- 
sip. Present- 
ly Billy said : 
“Say, fellows, 
I tell you what 
let’s do! Form 
a Club and every 
night we will 
come here as we are 
now and each relate the story 
of his life up to the present time. It will be most interesting and in- 
structive to those that are listening. For just see from what dif- 
ferent quarters of the globe we have come. Here is old Jumbo 
who came from Asia two hundred and fifty years ago. He was 

132 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

old before you were born. Then here is Maggie, who has crossed 
the Sahara desert, which is in Africa. And Polly from the jungles 
of South America; the zebra and giraffe from Africa, Big Ben, 
the baboon, also from Africa, the kangaroo from Australia, and 
Stubby, Button and myself from North America. So you see we 
have all the continents and one of the islands of the globe repre- 
sented here. 

“This being a Club, we must have a president, secretary, 
treasurer, speaker and directors, elected to office by the members. 
The dues to be paid in food, not money, as we animals have no use 
for money. The dues of the Club are to be paid monthly instead 
of yearly, as we may not all be together for a year, owing to the circus 
breaking up into four parts to do smaller towns. What say you 
all to my proposal?” 

Wild bellowings from the Sacred Bull, trumpeting from the ele- 
phant, growls from the baboon and heehaws from the burro; whin- 
neyings from the zebra, squeaks from the parrot, barks from Stubby 
and meows from Button were here accompanied by the stamping 
of feet in lieu of the clapping of hands to show their approval of 
Billy’s suggestion to have a Club. 

“Hush!” hissed Button. “We are awakening the night watch- 
man!” 

Immediately there was dead silence and each animal went back 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to its place and stood stock still as if sleeping, while the watchman 
rubbed his eyes, looked round and seeing all the animals in their 
places, thought he had dreamed he heard them bellowing and 
stamping. 

As soon as he fell over on the straw again and they heard him 
snore, they all came back to the middle of the ring where they 
were before, and Bettina, the burro, suggested that they elect Billy 
Whiskers president. But he refused to take it, saying the elephant 
should be president as he was much the oldest member. 

‘‘Then you must be speaker,” they all said. This he consented 
to be. Stubby was elected secretary and was to notify the members 
by word of mouth instead of writing them. Button was treasurer 
and was to look after the food until it was eaten. 

The directors of this Club were to be the animals that could 
get out of their cages to attend the Club meetings. Those who 
could not were to be honorary members. Polly was elected to fly 
from cage to cage and sit on the top and tell the animals in them 
what had been said at the last meeting. 

Now the Club was organized, all it needed was a name. Each 
director selected one and when they were voted on, the Good Fellow- 
ship Club had the most votes. Then the next thing to do was 
for them all to go round to the different animals in the cages and 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

tell them about the Club and ask them if they wished to join and 
be honorary members. 

The business of starting a Club being finished, the animals went 
back to their places to lie down and see if they could not get a 
little sleep before the circus was astir in the morning. Polly awoke 
first and just as day was dawning, she flew from cage to cage and 
told the animals in them about the new Club. Every animal in the 
entire circus joined except the hyenas and wild boars. The other 
animals were glad they did not, because these animals were much 
disliked, the hyenas because they ate human flesh, — and the boars 
for their boarish disposition. 

When the names of the members were read ofif at the next Club 
meeting, it was found they had as members walruses, lions, bears, 
sacred bulls, hippopotami, wild cats, tigers, wolves, camels, giraffes, 
elephants, dogs, leopards, elk, water buffaloes, rhinoceri, foxes and 
angora goats. The only ones of the monkey troop invited were the 
big baboons and chimpanzees. The members were afraid that if 
they invited the smaller monkeys to join they would chatter and 
make such a racket that it would waken the night watchman, who 
would break up the meeting. 

They were to assemble once a week on Wednesday evenings when 
not on the road. Should they be on the move, the meeting would 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

be postponed until the first evening they went in camp. It was 
decided that the first talk was to be by the president, the elephant, 
who was to tell them all he knew about elephants. The next talk 
was to be by the longest necked giraffe in the circus, followed by 
the oldest zebra. 


136 


CHAPTER XII 


THE ELEPHANT^S STORY 

HE next night being Wednesday, the day they had 
decided to have their Club meeting, all the animals 
that had joined the club appeared promptly at the 
appointed hour, which was eleven thirty, in the middle 
of the circus tent. This tent being rather small and very quiet at 
that hour of the night, it was found that all the animals in the cages 
surrounding the ring could hear plainly every word the speaker said. 
And the night watchman being such a sound sleeper, their con- 
versation did not awaken him. So without any fear the elephant 
began his story. 



The Elephant’s Story 

“Dear friends, I am about to tell you not only the story of my 
life which will seem a long one to you, as I am in my two hundred 
and fiftieth year, but many things about elephants. As this is to be 
a Club not only for amusement, but for education as well, I hope you 
will bear with me if I seem tedious. It is astonishing how little any 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

of us know of the lives and habits of our friends in their free and 
native state in the countries where they live so far away from us. 
All we know of them is just what we see of them day by day in the 
circus, so in my talk to-night I will try to tell you as much as I can 
about elephants, leaving out all unnecessary details. 

“The first thing of importance in my life I remember distinctly 
was walking between my father and mother (two magnificent look- 
ing animals) behind a herd of nine elephants in a wonderful, huge, 
beautiful forest in Siam, a country in Southern Asia bordering on 
the Indian Ocean. While walking along I was wondering how 
the big trees five and six feet in diameter get there with their long 
limbs and good tasting leaves. For while I was only a baby 
elephant three or four months of age, I distinctly remember admir- 
ing the many different colored and shaped flowers that bloomed on 
the trailing vines and seemed to festoon themselves everywhere. 
But beautiful and sweet smelling as the flowers on these vines were, 
my father and mother did not appreciate them for they tore them 
rudely aside as the ropelike festoons hindered their progress through 
the jungle. I have often heard my father complain to my mother 
that these vines and the sharp thorns on the thorn bushes, with the 
rotting logs under one’s feet, quite spoiled all the pleasure of walk- 
ing in the jungle, and he would greatly prefer walking on the plains 
if it were not for the broiling hot sun and no trees to shade one. 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Just then a loud trumpeting was heard from the leader of the 
herd away ahead to warn the herd that there were hunters in sight 
looking for them. Quick as a flash my father pointed with his 
trunk to a thick, dark clump of trees and told my mother to take me 
and hide there while he went to reconnoiter. All elephants are very 
brave when their young are attacked and will defend them with 
their lives. The male elephants always try to protect the females 
and young by keeping them in the rear of the herd when on the 
move, while they march ahead. 

“My mother and I were scarcely concealed behind the big trees, 
drooping vines and low bushes when I saw a tall, slender native 
with only a breech cloth round his loins push his head through the 
bushes close beside the place where we had been standing when 
the leader trumpeted his warning. This man held in one hand a 
long spear with a sharp arrowhead top, and a coiled rope in the 
other. And I heard my mother give a frightened sigh and say to 
herself: ‘The king’s head elephant hunter 1 He has been on our 
track for days. We surely are lost for he always gets his prey. He 
has captured four of our most splendid elephants recently.’ 

“At that moment the man happened to cast his eyes down and I 
saw a slow, cruel smile of triumph spread over his face as his big 
red lips opened and disclosed his sharp, white teeth. He had 
discovered our footprints in the soft mud at his feet. Looking 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

around quickly in all directions and peering into the bushes and 
dark places in the forest, I felt he must see us, he looked so straight 
in our direction. Then he drew himself to his full height and 
sniffed the air, and again that cruel, triumphant smile lit his jaw. 
My mother, who was watching him as closely as I, drew in a 
frightened breath and whispered to me: ‘He has scented us! We 
are lost! But he may pass us by. Don’t move a muscle or take a 
deep breath.’ 

“Closely following the tracks, nearer and nearer he drew to us 
without stopping until he came to the place where my father’s 
tracks left ours and went north. Here the man hesitated and looked 
closely as if to decide which of the tracks to follow. Then he lay 
flat on the ground with his ear close to it and listened, and when 
he got up he had another of his hateful smiles on his face, straight- 
ened himself and again sniffing the air, he started and came 
straight as an arrow to the place where we were hiding. But as 
he separated the bushes behind which we were standing, my mother 
stretched out her trunk, caught him around the neck and threw him 
over her head. I heard him go crashing between the big limbs of 
the trees and fall to the ground. 

“ ‘There, he is done for,’ said my mother, ‘but it was a close call. 
His friends, if they ever do find him, will discover him dead from 
a broken neck.’ 


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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Just then she gave a groan of pain and sank to the ground, but 
as she fell she sent out an agonizing trumpet of pain and warning 
to my father and the herd. By a miracle the man’s neck had not 
been broken and on regaining his feet he had thrown his sharp, 



murderous spear at her and it had penetrated her back in a tender 
part and killed her. 

“I was wondering what to do when my father, in answer to her 
death cry, came charging back, followed by the leader of the herd 
and two other strong elephants. Discovering my mother was dead. 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

they became furious and began looking for the person who had 
killed her, for they knew on seeing the spear how she had met her 
death as they had been hunted so much and knew from experience 
what those cruel spears would do. They began tearing up young 
trees by the roots and stamping the ground in the hopes of finding 
the person who had killed her hiding under a log or up in a tree. 
But no one could they discover until with a bellow of rage my 
father’s hind foot was caught in a slip knot of a rope thrown from 
the limb of a big tree by the native who had killed my mother. The 
tree was too big for my father to uproot but he began to tear off all 
the limbs he could reach, but to no purpose — as he tore off the lower 
ones the native only climbed up the higher. 

“‘Ha! Hal My fine fellow,’ laughed the native, ‘I have you 
at last! I have gone without sleep, rest and much food to catch 
you for the king’s stables. He wants just such a good-looking 
elephant as you to train to carry him in his houdah on your back 
in the next state procession. So the quicker you get over your 
fury and become docile, the better you will be treated. Yours will 
be a life of ease, and no pulling of heavy logs in the river out in 
the broiling hot sun. You will have a cool, shady pagoda to stay 
in when the sun is up and a cool deep marble bath to bathe in, and 
plenty of good food to eat. What more could you wish? And 
when you take my master for a ride on your back in his houdah you 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

will head the procession of elephants with the nobility and flower 
of Siam on elephants behind you. Your houdah or seat for the king 
and all its trappings will be of crimson velvet embroidered in gold, 
set with precious stones, while theirs will be of silver. Come now, 
stop that struggling or I shall have to tie up another leg and fasten 
you to a tree. You won’t? Then here goes!’ and he put his fingers 
to his lips and gave the sharpest, most penetrating whistle I ever 
heard or hope to hear. From the bushes on all sides of us appeared 
other half naked huntsmen, bringing a trained elephant with them 
to help them subdue my father. And with the elephant’s help they 
soon had my poor tired father hobbled so he could scarcely move. 
And here the head huntsman left my father with the natives and 
returned to the king’s palace to acquaint him with his find. 

“Elephants are also caught by drawing a herd into a strongly 
constructed enclosure by frightening them with noise and fire until 
the poor things are so confused they don’t know where they are go- 
ing. Once in the enclosure, with the help of tame decoy elephants, 
they are quickly fastened to trees by tying one leg at a time. Here 
they are kept until they become docile and tame enough to be taught 
what the natives wish them to do. 

“There is one interesting thing about elephants and it is this: If 
for any reason one elephant leaves a herd or is driven from it, he 
is not allowed to join another or come back to his own. He is forced 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

to lead a solitary, lonesome life and he soon becomes morose and 
ill-tempered and takes delight in destroying everything. These 
elephants are called rogues. 

“And while I am about it, I will tell you a few more facts about 
elephants before I go back to what happened to myself. 

“The tusks of elephants are nothing more than enormously elon- 
gated front teeth. They grow to be seven or eight feet long and 
often weigh from one hundred to two hundred and fifty pounds. 
This with the weight of the animal is considerable, as they fre- 
quently weigh from four thousand to nine thousand pounds. Their 
usual height is from nine to ten feet but they have been known to 
reach the height of fifteen feet. Though so large and strong, they 
are rather delicate in captivity and require being fed with care. 
When working they are fed two hundredweight of green food, half 
a bushel of grain and forty gallons of water each day. When once 
tamed and trained, they are of immense value in the East where 
they do the heavy work like pulling and hauling logs, road build- 
ing and so on as well as being used by royalty on state occasions to 
carry them on their backs in gaudy houdahs, a kind of seat with a 
canopy or top over it. At such times the elephants are bedecked 
in great splendor with head pieces of gold and silver set with 
precious stones. 


144 




ON THAT LONG TABLE SET FOR A HUNDRED FIFTIT PERSONS, EACH ANIMAL 

FOUND SOMETHING TO HIS TASTE. 


(Page IGO) 







Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

^‘You have heard of the Sacred White Elephants? Well, there 
is a dispute about them. Some authorities say they are simply 
albinos, which means a person or animal all white with red eyes. 
Others say the white hair is due to a skin disease. Whichever way 
it is, the people of India consider them sacred and great care and 
attention is lavished on them. They have pagodas of their own, 
cooling baths and servants to look after them. 

Elephants are found in Africa, Asia, and Ceylon. The African 
elephant differs from the species in Asia in being taller, having larger 
ears and a different shaped forehead. The African elephant is 
hunted for its tusks which are of great value when made up into 
ivory trinkets, toilet articles and other things. The natives of 
Africa in the jungle count their wealth by the number and size of 
the elephant tusks they have. They are more fierce than the Asia 
elephants and are not used as beasts of burden so much on that 
account. 

“Now I have given you a few statistics about elephants in general 
and will go back to where my father was caught and I was still un- 
discovered beside my dead mother. 

“As night came on I began to grow terribly frightened, for in 
the darkness I could see the blazing eyes of wild beasts around and 
snakes peering at me through the bushes. They had been attracted 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

by the smell of blood and were only waiting to pounce upon my 
mother and eat her when they found out whether she was alive and 
sleeping or dead. 

“The natives had built a fire and were preparing their supper 
not twenty feet from my father who stood stock still now, having 



completely worn himself out fighting and straining to loosen the 
ropes that bound him. The natives’ fire made a patch of light in 
the inky black forest and I was truly thankful for it, as it made me 
less afraid. But the blazing eyes kept creeping nearer and nearer 
where I stood until I was trying to make up my mind to brave the 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

natives and run to my father when my mind was made up in a 
hurry. Hearing the leaves above rustle, I looked up and what 
should I see but a big tiger about to spring on me. With one bound 
I was out of the bushes and running toward my father. On seeing 
me he caressed me with his trunk and told me not to be afraid but 
to be brave. My sudden appearance surprised the natives very 
much and with one accord they jumped up and came toward us and 
before I knew it, I was lied up. 

‘‘The natives were very good to us and when my father saw that 
they did not intend to hurt either of us, he soon had confidence in 
them. At the end of two weeks the natives thought my father was 
docile and tame enough for them to start out of the forest with him 
to the king’s stables. 

“I have had many, many masters and trainers in my long life, 
but none that I loved as I did the first one that brought me out of 
the jungle. 

‘T should like to tell you about my trip to America in the big ships 
across the oceans, but I see I have already talked over my time. So 
thanking you for your kind attention, I will bid you good-night,” 
and with much applause Jumbo returned to the side of the ring to 
listen to what the next speaker had to say, which all had voted must 
be Billy Whiskers. 


147 





CHAPTER XIII 


BILLY WHISKERS' STORY 

HEN the animals were all quiet again, Billy said: 

“Kind friends, I think I will tell you of an expe- 
rience Nannie and I had when we were on a ranch out 
in New Mexico and I was leader of a large flock of 
sheep. You know that most flocks of sheep have several big goats 
to help guard the sheep against the attack of wolves. 

“We had been doing this for a long time and had grown weary 
of the dangerous, monotonous life. We decided to run away, cross 
the mountain and make our way East. This ranch was directly at 
the foot of the Rocky Mountains and as this was a good time of the 
year to travel, there being plenty of grass and water, and little snow 
on top of the mountains, we determined to start immediately. We 
only waited for the herders to drive the sheep into the corral for the 
night and then we started. 

“We had been out about ten days climbing straight up and up, 
higher and higher, and the nights were getting colder and colder, 
and the food scarcer and scarcer. We determined we must make a 



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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

rush trip the next day and get over the top of the mountain or we 
would be snowbound and starve to death. That night we went to 
bed very early so as to be up at sunrise. As luck would have it, we 
had found a small cave hid away up the side of the mountain among 
the rocks which would protect us against the high winds, and we 
were congratulating ourselves on finding it for now we could have 
a good sleep undisturbed by wind or rain. 

“We must have been asleep for three or four hours when Nannie 
awakened me by huddling up close and whispering in my ear: ‘Oh, 
Billy, I am so afraid! I thought I heard wolves howling in the 
valley!’ 

“As she finished speaking I heard them myself and from the howls 
I judged there must be six or eight. But as you know the howl of 
one wolf sounds like two or three, so I could not be sure. Of one 
thing I was sure and that was that they were on our track and coming 
fast, and two goats against six or eight wolves hadn’t much show. 
The only advantage we had was that we were in a cave and so 
protected on three sides. If we could hold the entrance and keep 
them out, we might be able to pick them off one by one. 

“I had some hope of saving our lives this way but should they 
decide to attack in a bunch we could not hope to fight them off. 
Nannie would be practically no help unless she got over her fright 
to some extent, for now she was panic-stricken and could not think. 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

And one wants his brain in good working order when fighting 
wolves. 

“On, on came the cruel beasts, nearer and nearer, and Nannie 
shook so by this time she could not even stand up. I knew this 
would never do so I said: ‘Nannie, my dear, unless you stand up 



and fight, and fight as you never did before, we will be torn to pieces 
in less than ten minutes, for the wolves are almost here. I can’t 
fight them off alone, but with your assistance we may be able to save 
our lives.’ 

“Just then a big black wolf with mouth open and red tongue hang- 
ing out between sharp white teeth, appeared at the entrance of the 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


cave. As if gloating over us, he raised his head and gave the pack 

cry for the others to come on; that 
he had found their prey. 

“Now was my chance. 
While he had his head raised 
to give the cry, his eyes were 
turned upward and 
his chest expanded. 
So with a mighty 
spring forward I 
buried my sharp 
^ horns in 

~ his chest, 
piercing 
clear through 
to his heart. 

• He dropped 
dead. I had just 
finished with 
him when two more 



came in sight. 

“ ‘Come on, Nannie 1 
the right and I will. 


You take the smaller one to 
take the big one to the left. 


52 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

Be sure to spring upon them the minute they reach the spot in the 
path where that big stone is. It will take them so by surprise that it 
will give us the advantage, for they expect us to run away instead 
of fight.’ 

“And now that there was real danger at hand, Nannie bounded 
up as she always did and she and I sprang a4: the wolves at the 
same instant and knocked them over the steep cliff down into 
the canyon below. And we could hear them rolling with the 
stones they loosened, down, down, down into the rocky stream 
below. 

“Now two more wolves came from one direction and three from 
another, and none of them knew what had happened to their com- 
rades for the killings had taken place out of sight and in such quick 
time that none of the wolves had let out so much as a peep. 

“ ‘Keep close to me, Nannie, so I can help you a little,’ I said. 

“Just then the wolves spied us, and they all gave a howl of 
pleasure and quickened their pace. ‘Now is where we fight as we 
never did before, or die,’ I thought. 

“With mouth open and tail swinging high in air, the foremost and 
largest one of the five jumped straight for me. He was so much 
larger than I that for a second he bore me to the ground with his 
teeth in my neck, but as luck would have it the collar I always wore 
kept the wolf from closing his mouth so his sharp teeth only grazed 

I S3 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

my skin instead of sinking into my throat as the wolf intended they 
should. 

“Nannie, on seeing me down and the wolf on top of me with blood 
flowing from my wounds, thought of course I was killed. And for- 
getting herself, she charged on the wolf, and while he was preparing 
for another bite at my neck, something ran in his side and he knew 
no more. Nannie’s sharp horns had pierced his heart. She had 
just time to pull her horns out of his side when the other ‘Wolves 
were upon her. 

“Seeing them coming, I squirmed from under the heavy dead 
wolf that was pinning me down and was on my feet beside Nannie 
before the wolves reached her. But what was our surprise to see 
the wolves stop short when within six feet of us, lift their noses in the 
air, sniff and start past us on a gallop. The wolves had smelled 
the blood of the first wolf that had been killed and Nannie and I 
had no charms for them compared to fresh blood, even though it 
was the blood of one of their own pack. They fell upon the wolves 
Nannie and I had killed and fought and tore at the carcasses until 
not a shred of meat was left on any of the bones. 

“ ‘Now is our time to escape, Nannie, while the wolves are gorg- 
ing themselves with fresh meat,’ I said, and so we started up the side 
of the mountain in double quick time. By morning we had reached 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

the summit and crossed over and were down the other side be- 
yond the snow line before we stopped traveling. But we had to 
halt and get our breath and rest very often as one has to in high 
altitudes. 

“Needless to say, we reached the valley in safety or we would not 
be here now. I thank you for your kind attention.” 

At the close of Billy’s story he stepped into the center of the ring 
and announced that he had been loose all day and allowed to roam 
at will, and while hanging around the kitchen tent, he had heard the 
night watchman, cooks and other caretakers of the circus talking 
about a big ball that was to be given in the skating rink in town that 
evening for the circus people. They had all declared their inten- 
tions of going, for they were quite sure everything would be all right 
at the circus for the two or three hours they would be away, and the 
owner of the circus would be none the wiser. 

“The cooks are to make cakes and ice-cream, broil and glaze ham 
and other meats for them to have when they come back from the 
ball. And it is all to be set on the table before they go, so all they 
will have to do when they return will be to make hot coffee and then 
sit down and eat. Now I propose we go over and eat up that supper 
while they are away. They will think some hoodlums from the 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

town came out and did it. It will be great fun and give you animals 
a chance for once in your lives to taste the food humans eat. You 
may not like it; still you may as I have yet to meet the animal that 
does not like sugar or salt,” said Billy. 

“Your proposition sounds fine for a lark, but will you kindly tell 
us, Mr. Billy, how we are to get there when we are all tied and shut 
in a circus tent?” 

“Easily enough! Half of you animals don’t know your own 
strength or power or you would not be here. Now listen to my plan. 
The elephant, camel and moose will have to pull with all their 
strength on their ropes until the pegs in the ground to which they 
are tied fly out. I know they will. You all just think you can not 
uproot them, so you never have tried. So much for what thought 
will do for an animal as well as for a person. What we truly think 
turns out to be true if we only think hard enough in the right way.” 

“Those of you who are not noted for your strength but for your 
sharp teeth will gnaw your ropes in two, and when you are all free 
we will hie us to the banquet tent.” 

“But how are we to get out of this circus tent?” asked the giraffe. 

“The elephant will stick his sharp tusk through it and tear a hole 
in it large enough for you big animals to squeeze through.” 

“It sounds very plausible but I don’t believe it can be done,” said 
the elephant. 

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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“ ’Fraidy catl ’Fraidy catl” squeaked the parrot. 

“Shut up, Polly! Someone might hear you and then you would 
spoil the whole party!” 

“Come now, you animals with sharp teeth, begin to gnaw on your 
ropes!” called Billy. 

The poor giraffe was in despair. So was the zebra, for they both 
had large but flat teeth and could not chew a rope in two in a month. 

“Don’t worry, you two; Fll fix it so you can get loose. Fll chew 
your ropes for you,” offered Stubby, “and I’ll get Button to help 
me.” 

And then for many minutes all you could hear in the circus tent 
was a sound like thousands of rats gnawing. Their jaws were 
getting pretty tired from this unusual work when Billy thought of 
an excellent plan to lighten the task. He ran out of the tent and over 
to where the grain for the horses was kept. And here he found over 
a hundred rats eating the grain that had been spilled when the 
horses had been fed. 

He ran in their midst and said: “Stop eating a minute and listen 
to me, good friends! You can eat this stuff every day for it is always 
here, but I have a plan whereby you can get dainties to eat that you 
love with no fear of poison or of being caught. But before I tell 
you where you can get it, you must do. me a favor. It is an easy 
one that will take but ten minutes. Then you will be free until 

157 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

morning to eat the dainties I have told you of if you so wish. Will 
you do it or not?” 

The spokesman rat asked: “Where are these dainties you speak 
of to be had?” 

“I cannot tell you until 
you have done what I 
ask you to do. Should 
I tell you first, you might 
give me the laugh by 
running off and eating 
them up before you did 
the favor I am asking.” 

“Well, what is the 
favor?” asked another old 
rat. 

“It is to gnaw a few 
ropes in two. Come, 
hurry and decide for time 
flies, which makes the 
time all the shorter for your feast. Think of it, cakes, pies, pudding, 
meats, cheese of many kinds, all for the eating, and no danger I Will 
you or will you not come?” 



'58 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Yes, we will come. Now lead the way to where the ropes are 
you want chewed.” 

And I know even the men and the girl in the moon would have 
laughed had they chanced to look down and had seen a big white goat 
leading an army of rats into a circus tent. 

When the animals saw Billy coming with the rats they were too 
astonished to speak, and before they had time to ask any questions 
the rats were gnawing the ropes like mad. 

“Billy, for plans and strategy you certainly take the cake!” said 
the elephant. “You should have been human. With your brain 
you would have made a wonderful major general for some army.” 

In a jiffy the ropes fell apart and then the rats attacked the hole 
the elephant had made in the tent and helped him to tear it. When 
the hole was big enough for them to squeeze through, Billy said : 

“Now follow me, rats and animals, and I will lead you to the 
festive board where all the goodies are spread out for you to feast 
on them.” 

Once inside the tent every animal and rat tasted the things that 
looked most tempting to him. The leaf eaters ate the salad; the 
meat eaters, the ham and cold tongue; the rats ate the different 
cheeses and cakes; but the giraffe, being thirsty, was looking for a 
drink of water when he spied the ice-cream freezer. While nosing 

159 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

around he accidentally knocked the lid off, so he stuck his tongue 
in to taste it. Being hot and thirsty, it tasted good and felt cool to 
his throat. He was thus amusing himself when Billy found him. 
He would lick up a mouthful and then stretch his neck up as high 
as it would go and shut his eyes to enjoy the cool, sweet stream 
running down his long neck. He called to the elephant to come 
and try it, which he did but the elephant did not like it. He much 
preferred the salted nuts and went from place to place eating the 
nuts in the individual dishes. 

The camel liked the sweet cakes and so it was that on that long 
table set for a hundred fifty persons, each animal found something 
to his taste. And those greedy animals and rats did not leave until 
there was not a morsel of food left and the plates were licked as 
clean as if they had been washed. 

On going to the flap of the tent to look out to see about what time 
it was, Billy spied a long, straggling line of people coming down 
the street straight for the tent. He recognized them as the circus 
people coming home from the ball. 

It took but a minute for him to notify his friends and in less time 
than it takes to tell it, every animal and rat was out of the tent and 
hurrying as fast as fast could be to get back to their places in the 
tent before the night watchman got there or any of the returning 
crowd saw them. After they had seen that all the animals were back 

i6o 



‘‘FOLLOW ME, NANxXIE!” CALLED BILLY AND E-AN UNDER THE HOOK-AND- 

LADDER AUTO. 


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Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

in their places standing beside their gnawed ropes, Billy and Stubby 
and Button ran back to the dining tent and secreted themselves so 
they could hear what the circus people said when they entered their 
tent and found the food all eaten. 

The first to come was the head chef and one of the bareback lady 
riders. On throwing back the flap of the tent to show the lady 
what mountains of goodies he had prepared for the feast, the chef 
was struck dumb by the sight of the empty table. At first he 
thought there must be some practical joke about it and that someone 
had hidden the food and put down empty plates. So he rushed in 
and looked under the table to see if they had hidden the food there. 
But no! Then to the kitchen to look in the oven and cupboards 
for food, but no food appeared. He was wringing his hands and 
pulling his hair when the rest of the crowd arrived wanting to know 
what kind of a practical joke he called it to have no food and only an 
empty table to show an impatient crowd when they arrived from the 
ball hungry as wolves. Cries were heard of “Throw him in the 
river! Throw him in the river!” 

“No! No! Stop that howling! Can’t you see the poor man is 
beside himself at the loss of the supper? Don’t you see he has 
played no joke on you, but someone else has played a joke on him?” 
said the lady with him. “But I am with you to find out who did 
play this mean trick. 

i6i 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Anyway, we can have some ice-cream, for I see the ice-cream 
freezer at the end of yonder table. Each get your saucer and 
spoon and I will serve you.” 

But alas! when she got there she found the top of the can on the 
floor and the ice-cream all gone. 

“Who has done this? Who has done this?” they all asked one 
another but no one knew or could even guess. And they have not 
found out to this day and that was over a year ago. 

The next day the circus was to be divided, half going to Duluth 
and half to Bismarck. All the animals were in a flutter to know 
how the division was to be made and who was going with whom. 


CHAPTER XIV 


POLLY AND THE MONKEY CAUSE TROUBLE 

BOUT the middle of the next morning the animals were 
discussing their next move and telling one another what 
they had heard their trainers and caretakers say of the 
places they were going and which animals were going 
to Duluth and which to Bismarck, when a scream rent the air and 
Polly began scolding and squeaking in her loudest and most angry 
voice. 

The lion roared out: “Can’t you be still and stop your squeaks for 
a few minutes at least? You chatter, chatter an endless chain of 
nonsense all day long and just when one is about to catch a little nap 
without being bothered by people sticking their canes and umbrellas 
into one’s sides, you have to squeak as if you were being killed.” 

“Oh, don’t talk to me, you old grouch! You need not think you 
are the only one that can make a noise in this circus! I guess you 
let out an ear splitting roar whenever you wish without asking per- 
mission or thinking if you will disturb any afternoon naps!” and 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

Polly gave another of her discordant squeaks and flew up onto a 
trapeze that was hanging from the top of the tent. 

“I guess you would squeak too if you had had a handful of feathers 
pulled out of your tail by a monkey,” said the old maid camel. 

“Ohl that is it, is it? The monkey is at his old tricks plaguing 
his enemy, the parrot,” replied the lion. 

Here the conversation was interrupted by squeaks and more 
squeaks, followed by the loud chattering of a monkey. Every an- 
imal in its cage and those tied in the ring looked up to where Polly 
and the monkey were having a terrible fight high on the trapeze. 
First Polly would be seen swinging from the under side by her bill, 
then the monkey. Then they would both sit on the bar and fight 
each other. Polly would peck with her bill and strike out with her 
claws while the monkey would slap her and grab out a handful of 
feathers. 

At last Polly had a chance to spread her wings and fly from the 
trapeze into the passageway that led from this tent into another 
where the performers’ dressing-rooms were. The monkey could not 
fly but he could do something almost as well. He could swing and 
jump, so he set the trapeze to swinging out farther and farther, then 
jumped and caught hold of a long rope that swung to the ground. 
This he caught and nimbly climbed down it. Once down, he ran 

164 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

into the passageway after Polly. Polly, turning, saw him coming 
as she was walking slowly along thinking she was rid of the monkey 
for a while at least. But when she saw him, her fright returned and 
with a squeak she spread her wings and flew 
until she saw an opening into one of the 
private dressing-rooms. Through this she 
flew and lit on the first thing she 
saw which, sad to relate, happened 
to be the golden head of the 
peroxide blonde bareback rider, 
who was in the act of bleaching 
her hair. She had the bottle 
raised over her head to pour some 
on her hair when 
Polly lit just where 
she was going to 
pour the liquid. Be- 
ing so startled, she did 
not know what she was doing and 
poured the liquid just the same. It went all over Polly and slowly 
turned her green feathers to a bright golden color. 

Then seeing the monkey and being deathly afraid of them, the 

165 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

circus girl threw the bottle at him and the rest of its contents spilled 
over the monkey, making him also a bright gold color. 

On seeing this, Polly ha-ha’d with laughter but it was cut short 
when, happening to look down, she saw her own body slowly turn- 
ing the same yellow the monkey’s was. On perceiving this she be- 
gan to squeak and cry, “Murder, murder!” while the frightened 
circus girl called “Help, help!” and the monkey squealed as loudly 
as he could to add to the confusion. Of course all the racket 
brought the circus people running to the tent to see who was being 
mistreated. Nor did their cries attract only the circus people, but 
the outside spectators and policemen as well. The people stopped 
to listen and stare while the policemen made a run for the tent. 

When the monkey saw the first policeman coming down the pas- 
sageway with club upraised, he ran toward the screaming circus 
girl and tried to hide under her dress. This of course made her 
cry “Help! Murder!” louder than ever and she kicked so hard she 
upset the chair she was sitting on. When the policeman appeared 
in the door she was lying on the floor under the overturned chair, 
still screaming. The police thought someone must have knocked 
her down with the chair and, perceiving no one in the room, took it 
for granted they must have made their escape by crawling under the 
tent, so he too crawled under. At that moment he saw a man 
running away from the tent as fast as he could, so he called to the 

1 66 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

crowd, “Stop him! Stop him!” But too late — the man had cleared 
the crowd and was by this time running with long strides and arm 
raised like a professional runner. 

Seeing this, the policeman took a long breath and started after the 
man, determined to overtake him if it took all day. He had run 
several blocks and was about winded and ready to drop when the 
man dodged into a yard, and went up the front steps, and into a 
house, slamming the door behind him without even turning around to 
see how near the policeman was on his trail. 

When the policeman arrived at the house he tried the door but of 
course it was locked. He pounded on it with his club, calling out 
at the same time : “Open the door if you don’t want me to break it 
down!” He had raised his club to give it another fearful whack 
when it opened in a hurry and in the doorway stood a tall, dignified 
man dressed in the long black coat of a clergyman, who said in a 
low, impressive voice: “My good man, why all this racket? Why 
did you not ring the bell instead of pounding on my door?” 

“Stand aside and let me pass or I will have you arrested for har- 
boring thieves!” 

As he said this a voice from the head of the stair said: “What is 
the trouble, father?” 

“There he is now, the murderer!” 

“Murderer! What do you mean be calling my son a murderer?” 

167 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

The policeman did not reply but attempted to push by the clergy- 
man with a rough hand. 

“Here, you minion of the law, use a little respect to my old father 
or ril chuck you out on the sidewalk,” and coming down the stairs, 
a young man added: “Here I am! Now tell us what this murder 
business is you are talking about.” 

“Well, as I was on me beat just about to pass the circus, I heard 
cries of ‘Helpl Help! Murder! Murder!’ and I ran in to see 
who was being murdered when I came to a room with a woman 
lying on the floor screaming murder. She had been knocked over 
with a chair and seeing the sides of her tent moving, I thought the 
murderer had just escaped by crawling under the tent. So I 
ducked under too and, sure enough, what should I see but this man 
here running for dear life. I called to the crowd to stop him but 
he ran so fast and pushed them off so when they tried to catch him 
that I know he was the man that had done the deed. So come on 
back wid me to the tent and see if your victim is dead or only scared. 
For it is you in the coop if she is dead.” 

At the end of this harangue the young man laughed so he had 
to hold his hands to his sides, while his father and the policeman 
stood by and looked at him. 

“Come in and sit down, officer, while I spoil all your circumstan- 
tial evidence.” 


i68 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Not so fast now, young man! You can tell me right here what 
ye have to tell. I’m not at all tired and can stand a little longer.” 

“Well, you see it is this way. I am a professional runner and I 
usually run stripped to the waist with the regular running togs on, 
but to-day I thought I would run in my ordinary clothes to see if it 
made much difference whether one was dressed for it or just in 
ordinary clothes. I left a crowd of fellows on the college steps so 
if you want proof that I am not the man you are looking for. I’ll go 
back with you to the college and you can talk to them or, better yet, 
step inside and call up the college and they will tell you I was there 
when this supposed murder took place.” 

“Not on your life will I telephone, for while I am doing it you 
will slip away.” 

“Not at alll You may handcuff me while you telephone.” This 
he did and on telephoning to the college received an answer that 
cleared the young man entirely. 

“Now, officer, just to show you there is no ill feeling, join me in 
a glass of sarsaparilla, for I am terribly thirsty after my run and I 
know you must be.” 

“Thank you very much. I will,” and the two shook hands to 
show there was no ill feeling. 

On his way back to the police station, the policeman stopped at 
the circus to see if the murderer had been caught or if there had 

169 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

been no murder after all, but just a cry of murder. He found the 
lady giving a last pat to her elaborately dressed peroxide-colored 
hair and laughing at a little monkey in a cage and a gold colored 
parrot with a green tail sitting on a perch on one side of her tent, 
while the parrot was saying in a singsong voice: “Never again! 
Never again!” But the monkey sat all crouched up in one corner. 

“Oh, officer, is that you? Did you find the man that murdered 
me?” 

“I sure did and he is the gamest young man I ever tried to arrest 
on the false accusation of a crazy-headed girl!” 

“Get right out of here! How dare you call me crazy-headed?” 
“Because that is what ye are! You scream ‘Help! Help! 
Murder! Murder!’ and disturb the peace.” 

On hearing this Polly began to cry: “Help! Help! Murder! 
Murder!” 

“Shut up, will ye, ye evil-eyed bird, or I will drown you!” 

“Shut up! Shut up! Hear him! Hear him!” squeaked Polly, 
at which the policeman beat a hasty retreat to the music of the circus 
lady’s laughter and Polly’s screeches. 


170 


CHAPTER XV 


THE CIRCUS BREAKS CAMP 



HAT night after the performance the circus broke camp 
and the friends were separated, the elephant, camel, 
monkey and parrot going to Bismarck while the moose, 
zebra, giraffe and sacred bull went to Duluth. But 
this was not the worst division that was made. Billy was to be sent 
to Duluth and Stubby and Button to Bismarck. Now here was an 
unforeseen catastrophe and the circus people, having observed the 
close companionship of the four, took precaution to lock Billy and 
Nannie in a cage by themselves and Stubby and Button in another. 

“Never mind,” counseled Billy. “You and Button go on with the 
circus for it is headed in the right direction for us and Nannie and 
I will run away from the circus and join you, never fear, just as 
soon as they let us out of this pesky cage.” 

“I knew something like this would happen if we stayed with their 
poky old circus!” grumbled Stubby. 

“I know you did, old fellow, but cheer up, we won’t be separated 
long.” 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

It was astonishing how quickly the circus people folded their 
tents, gathered up the long lines of seats, and started their wagon 
cages toward the circus train that lay in the yar-ds with steam up, all 
ready to start at a moment’s notice. Everything about a circus is 
systematized so that the minute the evening performance is over, 
everybody jumps to his or her appointed task and works with a 
will, so that where there were tents with flags and banners flying at 
night, the next morning there is only a deserted sawdust ring. Cir- 
cuses spring up over night like mushrooms and disappear as quickly 
as the dew on the grass when the sun comes up. 

By midnight the circus train was well under way and Billy and 
Nannie found themselves in a cage between the zebra and giraffe. 
About two o’clock the train stopped at a siding to let a passenger 
train pass. It being very late they had to wait as all regular trains 
had the right of way over a special like a circus train. 

As this siding was beside a stream on the outskirts of a sleeping 
little town, it was as still as death with the exception of the frogs in 
the pond and the katydids quarreling with each other in a tree beside 
the cage Billy and Nannie were in. Now if there was anything that 
made Billy nervous and depressed, it was hearing frogs and the hum 
of insects and katydids. It gave him the blues. At last he could 
stand it no longer and he baaed to the zebra and giraffe to see if 
they were awake. Both were and each declared himself wildly 

172 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

nervous and unable to sleep with the incessant repetition of “Katy 
did! She did! She didn^t! She did! She didn^tF until Billy 
bawled out: 



“Who cares a tinker’s dam whether she did or did not? Can’t 
you shut up and let some poor tired animals sleep?” 

“Yes,” whinnied the zebra, “for mercy sakes give us a rest! I 
should think you would need one yourselves the way you have been 

m 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

calling out ‘She did! She didn't!’ faster and faster until I thought 
your heads would fly off, and to tell you the truth I wish they had!" 

“I feel as if my ears were growing as big as my neck,” said the 
giraffe. “Just listening to any noise I don’t like makes me feel that 
way. But I don’t mind the katydids as I do those confounded frogs 
with their ‘Mudger-ka-rum, mudger-ka-rum. Knee-deep, knee- 
deep I’ ” 

“Is that what you think they say?” asked Billy. 

“Yes; what do you think they are calling?” 

“I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound to me as if they were saying 
what it does to you.” 

“Well, perhaps it would not sound that way to me but I once 
heard one of the keepers say the reason people think frogs say 
mudger-ka-rum was because there was once an Irishman going home 
late at night, half drunk, a jug of rum under his arm, and he thought 
the frogs were calling to him to give them his jug of rum as mudger- 
ka-rum sounded like my jug of rum." 

“Hal Ha!” laughed the giraffe. “That is a good one! And 
hereafter whenever I hear frogs I shall think of that saying. Lis- 
ten now; it really does sound as if that was what they were 
calling.” 

“I can’t go to sleep until the train starts, so let us tell stories until 
it does,” proposed Billy. 


174 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

“Very well, I’m willing,” agreed the zebra and giraffe. 

“You tell the first one. Tell us something about your experiences 
in the war,” added the giraffe. 

“Oh, for mercy sakes don’t say war to me! I am sick of the very 
name of it and I can’t bear to even think of its horror, much less tell 
about the black deeds I saw. You two tell me about your homes 
in Africa.” 

“Very well,” replied the zebra. “I’ll tell you what a merry chase 
I gave my pursuers when they were trying to catch me. You see 
white with many, many black stripes in it is hard to see at a distance. 
It seems to fade into the background. That is why during the war 
they painted the sides of the ships black and white so as to camouflage 
them.” 

“What does camouflage mean?” asked the giraffe. 

“You ought to know,” replied the zebra, “as your coat is 
camouflaged, though not just like mine as it has round black and 
white dots. They make it just as hard to see as stripes like mine.” 

“Is that so? I never knew that before. But I do know that it 
is almost impossible to shoot us when on the run, as our coats make 
it very difficult to judge the distance we are from the hunter. But 
I never knew it was due to our spots and color.” 

“Well, as I was saying,” continued the zebra, “where I lived there 
is a kind of tall growth of vegetation with long leaves just the width 

175 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

of our stripes and the branches grow straight and tall above our 
heads. When there is any of that kind of vegetation around and 
hunters get after us, we make for it and we are seldom seen after 
we enter, for the waving leaves throw black shadows across us and 
unless a hunter runs directly into us he will pass within a few feet 
of us and never discover us.” 

Just then the train gave a jerk that threw the zebra off its feet, 
bumped the giraffe’s head against the top of its cage and sent Billy’s 
head bang up against the end of his cage and Nannie’s short horns 
into his side. 

“Plague take this old train anyway I Why can’t the engineer 
toot the whistle and give a fellow warning that he is going to start? 
Now we can’t hear the rest of your story until we stop again as the 
train makes too much noise. 

“Good-by, you old frogs and katydids, I hope I never, never, never 
hear you peep again as long as I livel” said Billy. 


176 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE ESCAPE FROM THE CIRCUS 

HE next morning the circus arrived in Duluth. The 
tents Avere pitched and then hurry and confusion began 
as everyone was getting ready for the usual morning 
parade through the down-town streets of the city. 
This was just what Billy had been waiting for, as he intended to 
watch his chance and run away from the circus while it was on 
parade. But imagine his disgust when one of the circus men 
brought a little flat saddle and strapped it on his back and then put 
a fancy headpiece on his head and brought the monkey that had had 
the fight with Polly and tied it to one of his horns with a rope just 
long enough for it to reach the saddle, where the monkey was 
supposed to dance as the procession moved through the streets. 

“I’ll run away even if I have to drag the monkey with me, for I 
shan’t stay with the circus another day I” thought Billy. “I am so 
sick and tired of it. Besides, all the time we are here Stubby and 
Button are going farther and farther West away from us.” 

At exactly half past ten the circus procession filed out of the main 

177 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

tent headed by a band of twenty pieces following which came the 
bareback riders on snow white horses or jet black ones, with horses 
and riders all fixed exactly as they would be seen in the circus ring 
that afternoon, the women riders in their short tulle skirts with bare 
necks and arms and the men in their tights. Behind them came the 
performing animals and gilded chariots drawn by tiny Shetland 
ponies driven by little girls dressed as fairies or little boys dressed as 
princes. After them came the elephants, camels, sacred bull, 
zebras and so on, led by their keepers dressed in uniforms of black 
pants and red coats trimmed with gold lace and cords. Following all 
this were the cages with the animals in them, and one could see the 
giraffe sticking his head out of the hole in the roof so he could rest 
his long neck, and the tigers and lions pacing up and down their 
cages trying to get out. 

All the time the procession was making its way slowly through 
the streets the clown walked beside it talking to the crowds on the 
sidewalk. Oh, it was most exciting to the small boys and girls who 
never had seen a circus procession go by. 

But oh my, how deadly tiresome it was to the poor performers and 
animals that had to take parti Billy and Nannie happened to be 
about the middle of the procession and as bad luck would have it, 
one of the clowns had selected just that place to walk. Billy was 
growing more desperate every block they went at not seeing a single 

178 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

good chance to escape. For should he start to run away the clown 
would give the alarm and one of the guards of the procession in 
policeman’s uniform and mounted on horseback would give chase 
and capture him. Besides, he would have to butt his way through 
the crowds of people who were lining the sidewalks so closely it 
would be like butting through a stone wall. 

“Ohl What shall I do?” and Billy had dropped his head in dis- 
appointment and was paying no attention to the monkey on his back 
who kept on dancing and hitting his head with the little tambourine 
he had in his hand. All of a sudden he heard a great clattering of 
wheels and tooting of horns coming down a side street and just as 
his part of the procession got to the corner it parted so the fire engine 
and hook-and-ladder could go across the street. 

Now was their chance. “Follow me, Nannie 1” called Billy and 
with a bound forward he reached the middle of the street and ran 
under the hook-and-ladder auto, though it was going at breakneck 
speed and he ran the chance of being killed instantly. So did 
Nannie. Still it was Billy’s way to take a chance every time, no 
matter how dangerous it was. Once under the machine, they ran 
for all they were worth to keep covered by its long ladders so no 
one could see them. Their escape had been so sudden and just at 
a time when all eyes were on the fire engine and hook-and-ladder, 
that no one belonging to the circus saw them. 

179 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

The poor little monkey on Billy’s back was nearly scared to death 
so when he saw the ladders over his head he jumped from the little 
saddle on Billy’s back up on them. Luck was with him for the 
sudden jerk on the rope untied the loose knot and he found himself 
free, much to his delight as well as Billy’s. 

Presently the hook-and-ladder stopped and Billy could smell 
smoke and see fire ahead of them. But what made his heart bound 
with delight was that it had stopped directly opposite the opening 
into an alley. With a squeal of delight Billy and Nannie darted 
from under the machine and ran down the alley, never stopping 
until they were many blocks away. 

Now the question was, how was he to get the saddle from his 
back? Should anyone see him with it they would know he had run 
away from the circus. He would have to stay hid in the alley and 
not show himself on the streets until after dark. Seeing a packing 
box leaning against a fence, Billy nosed around until he found it 
was empty. Then they squeezed themselves between the fence and 
the box and lay down to rest and try to think out some way to free 
him from the saddle. 

While turning his head to look at it he found that by stretching 
his neck he could just get hold of the edge of the girth that strapped 
it to his back. Consequently he began squirming and twisting until 
he got a good hold with his teeth. Then with a mighty tug he pulled 

i8o 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 


it toward his head, and joy of joys! in three long strong pulls he had 
it up to his neck. So all he had to do was to duck his head and the 
saddle fell over his head and neck 
to the floor of the box. 

‘'Ha! Ha!” laughed Billy to him- 
self. “I think I am pretty smart to rid 
myself of that saddle. Now I 
can go wherever I wish and no 
one will suspect that I am not just 
an ordinary goat out looking for^ 
something to eat. Speaking of 
eats, I believe I’m 
hungry. Aren’t you, 

N annie? Now that 
we are rested, I think 
we had better go in 
search of food.” So 
they squeezed them- 
selves out of the box 
and went trotting down the alley 
as independently as you please. 

When they reached the corner where the alley crossed the street, 
they found a grocery store with baskets of vegetables and fruit dis- 

i8i 



Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

played outside. Billy took a peek and no one being in sight, he 
reached for a nice fresh cabbage and retired to the alley to eat it. 
Nannie did the same. Having finished the cabbage, they ate a 
bunch of carrots and were beginning on a head of lettuce when the 
grocery wagon drove into the alley and the driver chased them 
away with his long whip and then threw stones at them. 

Billy was now feeling pretty fine, having had all he wanted to eat, 
so he thought, “Now is the time for us to find the depot, so I can 
see if we can’t steal a ride out of here back to Minneapolis. There 
we must change cars and get on a train going west, or we will never 
catch up with Stubby and Button.” 

Had Billy only known it, he was at that minute within three 
blocks of the very depot he was looking for. He did not know this, 
but hearing a train whistle he thought he would follow the sound 
and see where it led him, in town or out. By jumping a fence or two 
and crossing a vacant lot, they soon came to a railroad track and look- 
ing down it what should he see but the very circus train they had 
come on ! 

“Hurrah! This is surely good luck for us for now I know we 
shall get on the right train to take us back. We’ll go over to 
the depot and watch for a chance to sneak into a freight car going 
in the right direction to carry us back to Minneapolis.” 

Billy soon found a good place for them to hide from which they 

182 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

could watch all the incoming and outgoing trains, but he saw no 
freight cars with the doors open. What he did see when it grew 
dark and the lights were lighted was an express mail train all 
made up and ready to start. He could see men throwing on mail 
bags and storing away express packages while the engine blew off 
steam and waited for the signal. He was watching this intently 
when the audacious thought struck him, “Why not go on that train 
instead of waiting for some old slow freight? We will try it. 
They can but throw us off and I’ll put up such a fight they won’t 
dare do it after we have once started. But the hard part will be 
to get aboard without one or the other of us being seen. However, 
it is pretty dark, which will help some, and I am going to try it.” 

So they trotted across the intervening tracks and jumped up on the 
platform. Now there were two platforms where this train stood 
and the doors of the car were open on each side so a person could 
board the train from either side. Billy noticed this, and while the 
man in charge of the mail car was standing at one door talking 
to the driver of a mail wagon that had just brought a big lot of 
mail bags, Billy and Nannie stepped in the opposite door and tip- 
toed into a dimly-lighted corner and hid behind a pile of mail bags. 
They had scarcely secreted themselves when the train gave a jerk 
and they were off. 

“Pretty slick work I call thatl” said Billy. “This surely has been 

183 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

our lucky day to run away from the circus and get started back to 
Minneapolis.” 

This train was the fast night express and made but one stop be- 
tween Duluth and Minneapolis, so when the train was out of the 
suburbs and rolling along through the quiet country, the mailman 
turned the lights down low and threw himself on a cot at the side 
of the car and was soon fast asleep. He never awoke until the 
train whistled for St. Paul. Then he was up and on his feet and 
ready to open the door the minute the train stopped. As he was 
removing the inner bar that fastened the door, he thought he heard 
a noise behind him, but he did not bother to look around to see what 
it was. Imagine his surprise when the door slipped open to see 
two big white goats leap past him and run down the platform and 
disappear in the crowd 1 

“Well, I’ll be hanged! How in the world did those goats get in 
my car and me not know it?” 

As Billy and Nannie stood outside the station wondering what 
they would do next, who should they see coming down the street 
but Stubby and Button. 

“Nannie, do my eyes deceive me, or is that really and truly 
Stubby and Button I see coming toward us?” 

“It really is!” 

“Well, well, well! Of all that is wonderful, where in the world 

184 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

did you come from? The last we ^aw of you, you were in the circus 
train bound for Bismarck, North Dakota, and at this minute we were 
wondering how we could get to you the quickest way.” 



“Yes,” spoke up Nannie, “we were debating which would be the 
safest and easiest, to try stealing a ride on a train or foot it. But my, 
I am glad you are here! Come here until we rub noses!” 

“This beats any luck we have had for some time,” answered 
Stubby. 

“I should say so,” agreed Button, “as we left the circus on pur- 

185 


Billy Whiskers Out for Fun 

pose to come back and look for you twol As you did not come on 
and we were to be carried further West the next morning which 
would separate us more and more every day they traveled, we de- 
termined to escape and come back to St. Paul in the hope of meet- 
ing your circus when it broke camp and came back here. But we 
expected to have the dickens’ own time to find you. Now we are 
all together again, I say we take a look at this city and try to get 
a little fun out of it, for so far our trip has had very little pleasure 
in it. Then after we have had all the hilarious times we care for, 
we can continue our journey west to the Pacific Coast.” 


THE END 


The 


Billy Whiskers Series 



By 

Frances 

Trego 

Montgomery 



The antics of frolicsome Billy Whiskers, that adventuresome goat Mrs. Montgomery writes 
about in these stories make all the boys and girls chuckle — and every story that is issued about 
him is pronounced by them “better than the last” 


TITLES IN SESIES 

1. Billy Whiskers 

2. Billy Whiskers* Elds 

5. Billy Whiskers, Junior 

A. Billy Whiskers’ Travels 

B. Billy Whiskers at the Oirens 

6. Billy Whiskers at the Fair 

7. Billy Whiskers’ Friends 

8. Billy Whiskers, Jr., and Ttia ohmae 

9. Billy Whiskers’ Grandchildren 

10. Billy Whiskers* Vacation 

11. Billy Whiskers Kidnaped 

12. Billy Whiskers* Twins 

13. Billy Whiskers In an Aeroplane 

14. Billy Whiskers in Town 

16. Billy Whiskers in Panama 

16. BUly Whiskers on the Mississippi 

17. Billy Whiskers at the Exposition 

18. Billy Whiskecs Out West 

19. Billy Whiskers in the South 

20. Billy Whiskers in Camp 

21. Billy Whiskers in Franco 

22. Billy Whiskers’ Adventures 

23. Billy Whiskers in the Movies 

24. Billy Whiskers Gut for Fun 

BOVII* m 30ASD8 

99VBR nr COLORS 

PROFUSE TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS 

FULL-PAGE DRAWINGS IN COLORS 


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY - AEEON, OHIO 




BOOKS FOR BOYS 


The Boy Scout Series 


5 ; 


By 


^ ^ 

^T5 


Major Robert Maitland 





and 

i 




Colonel George Durston 






« 



Where is there the boy not interested in adventure? 

Where the boy not intensely interested in the Boy Scouts too? 

Adventure plus Boy Scouts — there is nothing more to be desired, at least that is the way 
the boys feel who have read these stirring tales. 


TWELVE TITLES 


1. 

The Boy Scouts in Camp 

7. 

2. 

The Boy Scouts to the Rescue 

8. 

3. 

The Boy Scouts on the Trail 

9. 

4. 

The Boy Scout Firefighters 

10. 

6 . 

The Boy Scouts Afloat 

11. 

6. 

The Boy Scout Pathfinders 

12. 


The Boy Scout Automohillsts 

The Boy Scout Aviators 

The Boy Scouts’ Champion Recruit 

The Boy Scouts’ Defiance 

The Boy Scouts’ Challenge 

The Boy Scouts’ Victory 


EACH VOLUME A 12MO, WITH AN ATTRACTIVE JACKET PRINTED IN COLORS 


The Aeroplane Boys Series 

By Captain Frank Cobb 

Valorous deeds on land and sea are all very well — but now come tales of the air to thrill 
the boy’s heart. And here are three than which there are no better. High in the air the 
heroes fight out their own salvation — their own and others too, who never would dare the 
heights. 

BATTLING THE CLOUDS 
AN AVIATOR’S LUCK 
DANGEROUS DEEDS 

EACH VOLUME A 12MO, WITH FRONTISPIECE, AND JACKET IN COLORS 


THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY - AKRON, OHIO 


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